VM0T.ISH  1 


P53545 
a_2. 


THE  .CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY* 

BY 

EDITH   WHARTON 

//  4 

/h  0^'t> 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

MCMXIII 


THE 
CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


"  T  TNMNE  SPRAGG — how  can  you?"  her  mother 

\^_J  wailed,  raising  a  prematurely-wrinkled  hand 
heavy  with  rings  to  defend  the  note  which  a  languid 
"bell-boy"  had  just  brought  in. 

But  her  defence  was  as  feeble  as  her  protest,  and  she 
continued  to  smile  on  her  visitor  while  Miss  Spragg, 
with  a  turn  of  her  quick  young  fingers,  possessed  her 
self  of  the  missive  and  withdrew  to  the  window  to 
read  it. 

"I  guess  it's  meant  for  me,"  she  merely  threw  over 
her  shoulder  at  her  mother. 

"Did  you  ever,  Mrs.  Heeny?"  Mrs.  Spragg  mur 
mured  with  deprecating  pride. 

Mrs.  Heeny,  a  stout  professional-looking  person  in 
a  waterproof,  her  rusty  veil  thrown  back,  and  a  shabby 
alligator  bag  at  her  feet,  followed  the  mother's  glance 
with  good-humoured  approval. 

"I  never  met  with  a  lovelier  form,"  she  agreed,  an 
swering  the  spirit  rather  than  the  letter  of  her  hostess's 
enquiry. 

[31 


£HE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Mrs.  Spragg  and  her  visitor  were  enthroned  in  two 
heavy  gilt  armchairs  in  one  of  the  private  drawing- 
rooms  of  the  Hotel  Stentorian.  The  Spragg  rooms  were 
known  as  one  of  the  Looey  suites,  and  the  drawing-room 
walls,  above  their  wainscoting  of  highly-varnished  ma 
hogany,  were  hung  with  salmon-pink  damask  and 
adorned  with  oval  portraits  of  Marie  Antoinette  and 
the  Princess  de  Lamballe.  In  the  centre  of  the  florid 
carpet  a  gilt  table  with  a  top  of  Mexican  onyx  sustained 
a  palm  in  a  gilt  basket  tied  with  a  pink  bow.  But  for 
this  ornament,  and  a  copy  of  "The  Hound  of  the  Bas- 
kervilles"  which  lay  beside  it,  the  room  showed  no 
traces  of  human  use,  and  Mrs.  Spragg  herself  wrore  as 
complete  an  air  of  detachment  as  if  she  had  been  a 
wax  figure  in  a  show-window.  Her  attire  was  fashion 
able  enough  to  justify  such  a  post,  and  her  pale  soft- 
cheeked  face,  with  puffy  eye-lids  and  drooping  mouth, 
suggested  a  partially-melted  wax  figure  which  had  run 
to  double-chin. 

Mrs.  Heeny,  in  comparison,  had  a  reassuring  look  of 
solidity  and  reality.  The  planting  of  her  firm  black 
bulk  in  its  chair,  and  the  grasp  of  her  broad  red  hands 
on  the  gilt  arms,  bespoke  an  organized  and  self-reliant 
activity,  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Heeny 
was  a  "society"  manicure  and  masseuse.  Toward  Mrs. '• 
Spragg  and  her  daughter  she  filled  the  double  role  of 
manipulator  and  friend;  and  it  was  in  the  latter  capac 
ity  that,  her  day's  task  ended,  she  had  dropped  in  for 

[4] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

a  moment  to  "cheer  up"  the  lonely  ladies  of  the  Sten 
torian. 

The  young  girl  whose  "form"  had  won  Mrs.  Heeny's 
professional  commendation  suddenly  shifted  its  lovely 
lines  as  she  turned  back  from  the  window. 

"Here — you  can  have  it  after  all,"  she  said,  crum 
pling  the  note  and  tossing  it  with  a  contemptuous 
gesture  into  her  mother's  lap. 

"Why— isn't  it  from  Mr.  Popple?"  Mrs.  Spragg  ex 
claimed  unguardedly. 

"No — it  isn't.  What  made  you  think  I  thought  it 
was?"  snapped  her  daughter;  but  the  next  instant  she 
added,  with  an  outbreak  of  childish  disappointment: 
"It's  only  from  Mr.  Marvell's  sister — at  least  she  says 
she's  his  sister." 

Mrs.  Spragg, with  a  puzzled  frown,  groped  for  her  eye 
glass  among  the  jet  fringes  of  her  tightly-girded  front. 

Mrs.  Heeny's  small  blue  eyes  shot  out  sparks  of  curi 
osity.  "Marvell — what  Marvell  is  that?" 

The  girl  explained  languidly:  "A  little  fellow — I 
think  Mr.  Popple  said  his  name  was  Ralph";  while  her 
mother  continued:  "Undine  met  them  both  last  night 
at  that  party  downstairs.  And  from  something  Mr. 
Popple  said  to  her  about  going  to  one  of  the  new  plays, 
she  thought " 

"How  on  earth  do  you  know  what  I  thought?"  Un 
dine  flashed  back,  her  grey  eyes  darting  warnings  at  her 
mother  under  their  straight  black  brows. 

[5] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Why,  you  said  you  thought "  Mrs.  Spragg  began 

reproachfully;  but  Mrs.  Heeny,  heedless  of  their  bick 
erings,  was  pursuing  her  own  train  of  thought. 

"What  Popple?  Claud  Walsingham  Popple — the  por 
trait  painter?" 

"Yes — I  suppose  so.  He  said  he'd  like  to  paint  me. 
Mabel  Lipscomb  introduced  him.  I  don't  care  if  I  never 
see  him  again,"  the  girl  said,  bathed  in  angry  pink. 

"Do  you  know  him,  Mrs.  Heeny?"  Mrs.  Spragg  en 
quired. 

"I  should  say  I  did.  I  manicured  him  for  his  first  so 
ciety  portrait — a  full-length  of  Mrs.  Harmon  B.  Dris- 
coll."  Mrs.  Heeny  smiled  indulgently  on  her  hearers. 
"I  know  everybody.  If  they  don't  know  me  they  ain't 
in  it,  and  Claud  Walsingham  Popple's  in  it.  But  he  ain't 
nearly  as  in  it,"  she  continued  judicially,  "as  Ralph 
Mar  veil — the  little  fellow,  as  you  call  him." 

Undine  Spragg,  at  the  word,  swept  round  on  the 
speaker  with  one  of  the  quick  turns  that  revealed  her 
youthful  flexibility.  She  was  always  doubling  and  twist 
ing  on  herself,  and  every  movement  she  made  seemed 
to  start  at  the  nape  of  her  neck,  just  below  the  lifted 
roll  of  reddish-gold  hair,  and  flow  without  a  break 
through  her  whole  slim  length  to  the  tips  of  her  fingers 
and  the  points  of  her  slender  restless  feet. 

"Why,  do  you  know  the  Marvells?  Are  they  stylish?" 
she  asked. 

Mrs.  Heeny  gave  the  discouraged  gesture  of  a  peda- 
F61 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

gogue  who  has  vainly  striven  to  implant  the  rudiments 
of  knowledge  in  a  rebellious  mind. 

"Why,  Undine  Spragg,  I've  told  you  all  about  them 
time  and  again!  His  mother  was  a  Dagonet.  They  live 
with  old  Urban  Dagonet  down  in  Washington  Square." 

To  Mrs.  Spragg  this  conveyed  even  less  than  to  her 
daughter.  "'way  down  there?  Why  do  they  live  with 
somebody  else?  Haven't  they  got  the  means  to  have  a 
home  of  their  own?" 

Undine's  perceptions  were  more  rapid,  and  she  fixed 
her  eyes  searchingly  on  Mrs.  Heeny. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  Mr.  Marvell's  as  swell  as  Mr. 
Popple?" 

"As  swell  ?  Why,  Claud  Walsingham  Popple  ain't  in 
the  same  class  with  him!" 

The  girl  was  upon  her  mother  with  a  spring,  snatch 
ing  and  smoothing  out  the  crumpled  note. 

"Laura  Fairford — is  that  the  sister's  name?" 

"Mrs.  Henley  Fairford;  yes.  What  does  she  write 
about?" 

Undine's  face  lit  up  as  if  a  shaft  of  sunset  had  struck 
it  through  the  triple-curtained  windows  of  the  Stento 
rian. 

"  She  says  she  wants  me  to  dine  with  her  next  Wednes 
day.  Isn't  it  queer?  Why  does  she  want  me?  She's 
never  seen  me!"  Her  tone  implied  that  she  had  long 
been  accustomed  to  being  "wanted"  by  those  who  had. 

Mrs.  Heeny  laughed.  "He  saw  you,  didn't  he?" 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Who?  Ralph  Marvell?  Why,  of  course  he  did— Mr. 
Popple  brought  him  to  the  party  here  last  night." 

"Well,  there  you  are.  .  .  When  a  young  man  in  so 
ciety  wants  to  meet  a  girl  again,  he  gets  his  sister  to 
ask  her." 

Undine  stared  at  her  incredulously.  "How  queer! 
But  they  haven't  all  got  sisters,  have  they?  It  must  be 
fearfully  poky  for  the  ones  that  haven't." 

"They  get  their  mothers — or  their  married  friends," 
said  Mrs.  Heeny  omnisciently. 

"Married  gentlemen?"  enquired  Mrs.  Spragg,  slightly 
shocked,  but  genuinely  desirous  of  mastering  her  lesson. 

"Mercy,  no!  Married  ladies." 

"But  are  there  never  any  gentlemen  present?"  pur 
sued  Mrs.  Spragg,  feeling  that  if  this  were  the  case 
Undine  would  certainly  be  disappointed. 

"Present  where?  At  their  dinners?  Of  course — Mrs. 
Fairford  gives  the  smartest  little  dinners  in  town.  There 
was  an  account  of  one  she  gave  last  week  in  this  morn 
ing's  Town  Talk:  I  guess  it's  right  here  among  my 
clippings."  Mrs.  Heeny,  swooping  down  on  her  bag, 
drew  from  it  a  handful  of  newspaper  cuttings,  which 
she  spread  on  her  ample  lap  and  proceeded  to  sort 
with  a  moistened  forefinger.  "Here,"  she  said,  holding 
one  of  the  slips  at  arm's  length;  and  throwing  back  her 
head  she  read,  in  a  slow  unpunctuated  chant:  "'Mrs. 
Henley  Fairford  gave  another  of  her  natty  little  dinners 
last  Wednesday  as  usual  it  was  smart  small  and  exclu- 

[81 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

sive  and  there  was  much  gnashing  of  teeth  among  the 
left-outs  as  Madame  Olga  Loukowska  gave  some  of  her 

new  steppe  dances  after  dinner' that's  the  French 

for  new  dance  steps,"  Mrs.  Heeny  concluded,  thrusting 
the  documents  back  into  her  bag. 

"Do  you  know  Mrs.  Fairford  too?"  Undine  asked 
eagerly;  while  Mrs.  Spragg,  impressed,  but  anxious  for 
facts,  pursued:  "Does  she  reside  on  Fifth  Avenue?" 

"No,  she  has  a  little  house  in  Thirty-eighth  Street, 
down  beyond  Park  Avenue." 

The  ladies'  faces  drooped  again,  and  the  masseuse 
went  on  promptly:  "But  they're  glad  enough  to  have 
her  in  the  big  houses! — Why,  yes,  I  know  her,"  she 
said,  addressing  herself  to  Undine.  "I  mass'd  her  for  a 
sprained  ankle  a  couple  of  years  ago.  She's  got  a  lovely 
manner,  but  no  conversation.  Some  of  my  patients  con 
verse  exquisitely,"  Mrs.  Heeny  added  with  discrimina 
tion. 

Undine  was  brooding  over  the  note.  "It  is  written  to 
mother — Mrs.  Abner  E.  Spragg — I  never  saw  anything 
so  funny!  'Will  you  allow  your  daughter  to  dine  with 
me?'  Allow!  Is  Mrs.  Fairford  peculiar?" 

"No— you  are,"  said  Mrs.  Heeny  bluntly.  "Don't 
you  know  it's  the  thing  in  the  best  society  to  pretend 
that  girls  can't  do  anything  without  their  mothers'  per 
mission?  You  just  remember  that,  Undine.  You  mustn't 
accept  invitations  from  gentlemen  without  you  say 
you've  got  to  ask  your  mother  first." 

[9] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Mercy!  But  how'll  mother  know  what  to  say?" 

"Why,  she'll  say  what  you  tell  her  to,  of  course. 
You'd  better  tell  her  you  want  to  dine  with  Mrs.  Fair- 
ford,"  Mrs.  Heeny  added  humorously,  as  she  gathered 
her  waterproof  together  and  stooped  for  her  bag. 

"Have  I  got  to  write  the  note,  then?"  Mrs.  Spragg 
asked  with  rising  agitation. 

Mrs.  Heeny  reflected.  "Why,  no.  I  guess  Undine  can 
write  it  as  if  it  was  from  you.  Mrs.  Fairford  don't  know 
your  writing." 

This  was  an  evident  relief  to  Mrs.  Spragg,  and  as  Un 
dine  swept  to  her  room  with  the  note  her  mother  sank 
back,  murmuring  plaintively:  "Oh,  don't  go  yet,  Mrs. 
Heeny.  I  haven't  seen  a  human  being  all  day,  and  I 
can't  seem  to  find  anything  to  say  to  that  French  maid." 

Mrs.  Heeny  looked  at  her  hostess  with  friendly  com 
passion.  She  was  well  aware  that  she  was  the  only  bright 
spot  on  Mrs.  Spragg's  horizon.  Since  the  Spraggs,  some 
two  years  previously,  had  moved  from  Apex  City  to 
New  York,  they  had  made  little  progress  in  establish 
ing  relations  with  their  new  environment;  and  when, 
about  four  months  earlier,  Mrs.  Spragg's  doctor  had 
called  in  Mrs.  Heeny  to  minister  professionally  to  his 
patient,  he  had  done  more  for  her  spirit  than  for  her 
body.  Mrs.  Heeny  had  had  such  "cases"  before:  she 
knew  the  rich  helpless  family,  stranded  in  lonely  splen 
dour  in  a  sumptuous  West  Side  hotel,  with  a  father  com 
pelled  to  seek  a  semblance  of  social  life  at  the  hotel  bar, 

f  101 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  a  mother  deprived  of  even  this  contact  with  her 
kind,  and  reduced  to  illness  by  boredom  and  inactivity. 
Poor  Mrs.  Spragg  had  done  her  own  washing  in  her 
youth,  but  since  her  rising  fortunes  had  made  this  occu 
pation  unsuitable  she  had  sunk  into  the  relative  inertia 
which  the  ladies  of  Apex  City  regarded  as  one  of  the 
prerogatives  of  affluence.  At  Apex,  however,  she  had 
belonged  to  a  social  club,  and,  until  they  moved  to  the 
Mealey  House,  had  been  kept  busy  by  the  incessant 
struggle  with  domestic  cares;  whereas  New  York  seemed 
to  offer  no  field  for  any  form  of  lady -like  activity.  She 
therefore  took  her  exercise  vicariously,  with  Mrs. 
Heeny's  help;  and  Mrs.  Heeny  knew  how  to  manipu 
late  her  imagination  as  well  as  her  muscles.  It  was 
Mrs.  Heeny  who  peopled  the  solitude  of  the  long 
ghostly  days  with  lively  anecdotes  of  the  Van  Degens, 
the  Driscolls,  the  Chauncey  Ellings  and  the  other  so 
cial  potentates  whose  least  doings  Mrs.  Spragg  and  Un 
dine  had  followed  from  afar  in  the  Apex  papers,  and 
who  had  come  to  seem  so  much  more  remote  since 
only  the  width  of  the  Central  Park  divided  mother 
and  daughter  from  their  Olympian  portals. 

Mrs.  Spragg  had  no  ambition  for  herself — she  seemed 
to  have  transferred  her  whole  personality  to  her  child — 
but  she  was  passionately  resolved  that  Undine  should 
have  what  she  wanted,  and  she  sometimes  fancied  that 
Mrs.  Heeny,  who  crossed  those  sacred  thresholds  so 
familiarly,  might  some  day  gain  admission  for  Undine. 

[11] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Well — I'll  stay  a  little  mite  longer  if  you  want;  and 
supposing  I  was  to  rub  up  your  nails  while  we're  talk 
ing?  It'll  be  more  sociable,"  the  masseuse  suggested, 
lifting  her  bag  to  the  table  and  covering  its  shiny  onyx 
surface  with  bottles  and  polishers. 

Mrs.  Spragg  consentingly  slipped  the  rings  from  her 
small  mottled  hands.  It  was  soothing  to  feel  herself  in 
Mrs.  Heeny's  grasp,  and  though  she  knew  the  atten 
tion  would  cost  her  three  dollars  she  was  secure  in  the 
sense  that  Abner  wouldn't  mind.  It  had  been  clear  to 
Mrs.  Spragg,  ever  since  their  rather  precipitate  depar 
ture  from  Apex  City,  that  Abner  was  resolved  not  to 
mind — resolved  at  any  cost  to  "see  through"  the  New 
York  adventure.  It  seemed  likely  now  that  the  cost 
would  be  considerable.  They  had  lived  in  New  York 
for  two  years  without  any  social  benefit  to  their  daugh 
ter;  and  it  was  of  course  for  that  purpose  that  they  had 
come.  If,  at  the  time,  there  had  been  other  and  more 
pressing  reasons,  they  were  such  as  Mrs.  Spragg  and 
her  husband  never  touched  on,  even  in  the  gilded  pri 
vacy  of  their  bedroom  at  the  Stentorian;  and  so  com 
pletely  had  silence  closed  in  on  the  subject  that  to  Mrs. 
Spragg  it  had  become  non-existent:  she  really  believed 
that,  as  Abner  put  it,  they  had  left  Apex  because  Un 
dine  was  too  big  for  the  place. 

She  seemed  as  yet — poor  child! — too  small  for  New 
York:  actually  imperceptible  to  its  heedless  multitudes; 
and  her  mother  trembled  for  the  day  when  her  invisi- 

[121 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

bility  should  be  borne  in  on  her.  Mrs.  Spragg  did  not 
mind  the  long  delay  for  herself — she  had  stores  of  lym 
phatic  patience.  But  she  had  noticed  lately  that  Undine 
was  beginning  to  be  nervous,  and  there  was  nothing 
that  Undine's  parents  dreaded  so  much  as  her  being 
nervous.  Mrs.  Spragg's  maternal  apprehensions  uncon 
sciously  escaped  in  her  next  words. 

"I  do  hope  she'll  quiet  down  now,"  she  murmured, 
feeling  quieter  herself  as  her  hand  sank  into  Mrs. 
Heeny's  roomy  palm. 

"Who's  that?  Undine?" 

"  Yes.  She  seemed  so  set  on  that  Mr.  Popple's  coming 
round.  From  the  way  he  acted  last  night  she  thought 
he'd  be  sure  to  come  round  this  morning.  She's  so  lone 
some,  poor  child — I  can't  say  as  I  blame  her." 

"Oh,  he'll  come  round.  Things  don't  happen  as  quick 
as  that  in  New  York,"  said  Mrs.  Heeny,  driving  her 
nail-polisher  cheeringly. 

Mrs.  Spragg  sighed  again.  "They  don't  appear  to. 
They  say  New  Yorkers  are  always  in  a  hurry;  but  I 
can't  say  as  they've  hurried  much  to  make  our  ac 
quaintance." 

Mrs.  Heeny  drew  back  to  study  the  effect  of  her  work. 
"You  wait,  Mrs.  Spragg,  you  wait.  If  you  go  too  fast 
you  sometimes  have  to  rip  out  the  whole  seam." 

"Oh,  that's  so — that's  so  /"  Mrs.  Spragg  exclaimed, 
with  a  tragic  emphasis  that  made  the  masseuse  glance 
up  at  her. 

[131 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"  Of  course  it's  so.  And  it's  more  so  in  New  York  than 
anywhere.  The  wrong  set's  like  fly-paper:  once  you're 
in  it  you  can  pull  and  pull,  but  you'll  never  get  out  of  it 
again." 

Undine's  mother  heaved  another  and  more  helpless 
sigh.  "I  wish  you'd  tell  Undine  that,  Mrs.  Heeny." 

"Oh,  I  guess  Undine's  all  right.  A  girl  like  her  can 
afford  to  wait.  And  if  young  Marvell's  really  taken  with 
her  she'll  have  the  run  of  the  place  in  no  time." 

This  solacing  thought  enabled  Mrs.  Spragg  to  yield 
herself  unreservedly  to  Mrs.  Heeny's  ministrations, 
which  were  prolonged  for  a  happy  confidential  hour; 
and  she  had  just  bidden  the  masseuse  good-bye,  and 
was  restoring  the  rings  to  her  fingers,  when  the  door 
opened  to  admit  her  husband. 

Mr.  Spragg  came  in  silently,  setting  his  high  hat 
down  on  the  centre-table,  and  laying  his  overcoat  across 
one  of  the  gilt  chairs.  He  was  tallish,  grey-bearded  and 
somewhat  stooping,  with  the  slack  figure  of  the  seden 
tary  man  who  would  be  stout  if  he  were  not  dyspeptic; 
and  his  cautious  grey  eyes  with  pouch-like  underlids 
had  straight  black  brows  like  his  daughter's.  His  thin 
hair  was  worn  a  little  too  long  over  his  coat  collar,  and 
a  Masonic  emblem  dangled  from  the  heavy  gold  chain 
which  crossed  his  crumpled  black  waistcoat. 

He  stood  still  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  casting  a 
slow  pioneering  glance  about  its  gilded  void;  then  he 
said  gently:  "Well,  mother?" 

[141 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Mrs.  Spragg  remained  seated,  but  her  eyes  dwelt  on 
him  affectionately. 

"Undine's  been  asked  out  to  a  dinner-party;  and 
Mrs.  Heeny  says  it's  to  one  of  the  first  families.  It's  the 
sister  of  one  of  the  gentlemen  that  Mabel  Lipscomb  in 
troduced  her  to  last  night." 

There  was  a  mild  triumph  in  her  tone,  for  it  was 
owing  to  her  insistence  and  Undine's  that  Mr.  Spragg 
had  been  induced  to  give  up  the  house  they  had  bought 
in  West  End  Avenue,  and  move  with  his  family  to  the 
Stentorian.  Undine  had  early  decided  that  they  could 
not  hope  to  get  on  while  they  "kept  house" — all  the 
fashionable  people  she  knew  either  boarded  or  lived  in 
hotels.  Mrs.  Spragg  was  easily  induced  to  take  the  same 
view,  but  Mr.  Spragg  had  resisted,  being  at  the  mo 
ment  unable  either  to  sell  his  house  or  to  let  it  as  ad 
vantageously  as  he  had  hoped.  After  the  move  was 
made  it  seemed  for  a  time  as  though  he  had  been  right, 
and  the  first  social  steps  would  be  as  difficult  to  make 
in  a  hotel  as  in  one's  own  house;  and  Mrs.  Spragg  was 
therefore  eager  to  have  him  know  that  Undine  really 
owed  her  first  invitation  to  a  meeting  under  the  roof  of 
the  Stentorian. 

"You  see  we  were  right  to  come  here,  Abner,"  she 
added,  and  he  absently  rejoined:  "I  guess  you  two  al 
ways  manage  to  be  right." 

But  his  face  remained  unsmiling,  and  instead  of  seat 
ing  himself  and  lighting  his  cigar,  as  he  usually  did  be- 

[15] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

fore  dinner,  he  took  two  or  three  aimless  turns  about 
the  room,  and  then  paused  in  front  of  his  wife. 

"What's  the  matter — anything  wrong  down  town?'* 
she  asked,  her  eyes  reflecting  his  anxiety. 

Mrs.  Spragg's  knowledge  of  what  went  on  "down 
town"  was  of  the  most  elementary  kind,  but  her  hus 
band's  face  was  the  barometer  in  which  she  had  long 
been  accustomed  to  read  the  leave  to  go  on  unre 
strictedly,  or  the  warning  to  pause  and  abstain  till  the 
coming  storm  should  be  weathered. 

He  shook  his  head.  "N — no.  Nothing  worse  than 
what  I  can  see  to,  if  you  and  Undine  will  go  steady  for 
a  while."  He  paused  and  looked  across  the  room  at  his 
daughter's  door.  "Where  is  she — out?" 

"I  guess  she's  in  her  room,  going  over  her  dresses 
with  that  French  maid.  I  don't  know  as  she's  got  any 
thing  fit  to  wear  to  that  dinner,"  Mrs.  Spragg  added  in 
a  tentative  murmur. 

Mr.  Spragg  smiled  at  last.  "Well — I  guess  she  will 
have,"  he  said  prophetically. 

He  glanced  again  at  his  daughter's  door,  as  if  to 
make  sure  of  its  being  shut;  then,  standing  close  before 
his  wife,  he  lowered  his  voice  to  say:  "I  saw  Elmer 
Moffatt  down  town  to-day." 

"Oh,  Abner!"  A  wave  of  almost  physical  apprehen 
sion  passed  over  Mrs.  Spragg.  Her  jewelled  hands  trem 
bled  in  her  black  brocade  lap,  and  the  pulpy  curves  of 
her  face  collapsed  as  if  it  were  a  pricked  balloon. 

F161 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Oh,  Abner,"  she  moaned  again,  her  eyes  also  on  her 
daughter's  door. 

Mr.  Spragg's  black  eyebrows  gathered  in  an  angry 
frown,  but  it  was  evident  that  his  anger  was  not  against 
his  wife. 

"What's  the  good  of  Oh  Abner-ing?  Elmer  Moffatt's 
nothing  to  us — no  more'n  if  we  never  laid  eyes  on  him." 

"No — I  know  it;  but  what's  he  doing  here?  Did  you 
speak  to  him?"  she  faltered. 

He  slipped  his  thumbs  into  his  waistcoat  pockets. 
"No — I  guess  Elmer  and  I  are  pretty  well  talked  out." 

Mrs.  Spragg  took  up  her  moan.  "Don't  you  tell  her 
you  saw  him,  Abner." 

"I'll  do  as  you  say;  but  she  may  meet  him  herself." 

"Oh,  I  guess  not — not  in  this  new  set  she's  going 
with!  Don't  tell  her  anyhow" 

He  turned  away,  feeling  for  one  of  the  cigars  which 
he  always  carried  loose  in  his  pocket;  and  his  wife, 
rising,  stole  after  him,  and  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"He  can't  do  anything  to  her,  can  he?" 

"Do  anything  to  her?"  He  swung  about  furiously. 
"I'd  like  to  see  him  touch  her— that's  all!" 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


II 


T  TNDINE'S  white  and  gold  bedroom,  with  sea- 
\^J  green  panels  and  old  rose  carpet,  looked  along 
Seventy-second  Street  toward  the  leafless  tree-tops  of 
the  Central  Park. 

She  went  to  the  window,  and  drawing  back  its  many 
layers  of  lace  gazed  eastward  down  the  long  brown- 
stone  perspective.  Beyond  the  Park  lay  Fifth  Avenue 
— and  Fifth  Avenue  was  where  she  wanted  to  be! 

She  turned  back  into  the  room,  and  going  to  her 
writing-table  laid  Mrs.  Fairford's  note  before  her,  and 
began  to  study  it  minutely.  She  had  read  in  the 
"Boudoir  Chat"  of  one  of  the  Sunday  papers  that  the 
smartest  women  were  using  the  new  pigeon-blood  note- 
paper  with  white  ink;  and  rather  against  her  mother's 
advice  she  had  ordered  a  large  supply,  with  her  mon 
ogram  in  silver.  It  was  a  disappointment,  therefore, 
to  find  that  Mrs.  Fairford  wrote  on  the  old-fashioned 
white  sheet,  without  even  a  monogram — simply  her 
address  and  telephone  number.  It  gave  Undine  rather 
a  poor  opinion  of  Mrs.  Fairford's  social  standing,  and 
for  a  moment  she  thought  with  considerable  satisfac 
tion  of  answering  the  note  on  her  pigeon-blood  paper. 
Then  she  remembered  Mrs.  Heeny's  emphatic  com 
mendation  of  Mrs.  Fairford,  and  her  pen  wavered. 
What  if  white  paper  were  really  newer  than  pigeon- 
US  1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

blood?  It  might  be  more  stylish,  anyhow.  Well,  she 
didn't  care  if  Mrs.  Fairford  didn't  like  red  paper — she 
did!  And  she  wasn't  going  to  truckle  to  any  woman 
who  lived  in  a  small  house  down  beyond  Park  Ave 
nue.  .  . 

Undine  was  fiercely  independent  and  yet  passionately 
imitative.  She  wanted  to  surprise  every  one  by  her 
dash  and  originality,  but  she  could  not  help  modelling 
herself  on  the  last  person  she  met,  and  the  confusion  V 
of  ideals  thus  produced  caused  her  much  perturbation 
when  she  had  to  choose  between  two  courses.  She  hesi 
tated  a  moment  longer,  and  then  took  from  the  drawer 
a  plain  sheet  with  the  hotel  address. 

It  was  amusing  to  write  the  note  in  her  mother's 
name — she  giggled  as  she  formed  the  phrase  "I  shall 
be  happy  to  permit  my  daughter  to  take  dinner  with 
you"  ("take  dinner"  seemed  more  elegant  than  Mrs. 
Fairford's  "dine") — but  when  she  came  to  the  signa 
ture  she  was  met  by  a  new  difficulty.  Mrs.  Fairford  had 
signed  herself  "Laura  Fairford" — just  as  one  school 
girl  would  write  to  another.  But  could  this  be  a  proper 
model  for  Mrs.  Spragg?  Undine  could  not  tolerate  the 
thought  of  her  mother's  abasing  herself  to  a  denizen  of 
regions  beyond  Park  Avenue,  and  she  resolutely  formed 
the  signature:  "Sincerely,  Mrs.  Abner  E.  Spragg." 
Then  uncertainty  overcame  her,  and  she  re-wrote  her 
note  and  copied  Mrs.  Fairford's  formula:  "Yours  sin 
cerely,  Leota  B.  Spragg."  But  this  struck  her  as  an 

[191 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

odd  juxtaposition  of  formality  and  freedom,  and  she 
made  a  third  attempt:  "Yours  with  love,  Leota  B. 
Spragg."  This,  however,  seemed  excessive,  as  the  ladies 
had  never  met;  and  after  several  other  experiments  she 
finally  decided  on  a  compromise,  and  ended  the  note: 
"Yours  sincerely,  Mrs.  Leota  B.  Spragg."  That  might 
be  conventional,  Undine  reflected,  but  it  was  certainly 
correct. 

This  point  settled,  she  flung  open  her  door,  calling 
imperiously  down  the  passage:  "Celeste!"  and  adding, 
as  the  French  maid  appeared:  "I  want  to  look  over  all 
my  dinner-dresses." 

Considering  the  extent  of  Miss  Spragg's  wardrobe 
her  dinner-dresses  were  not  many.  She  had  ordered 
a  number  the  year  before  but,  vexed  at  her  lack  of  use 
for  them,  had  tossed  them  over  impatiently  to  the 
maid.  Since  then,  indeed,  she  and  Mrs.  Spragg  had 
succumbed  to  the  abstract  pleasure  of  buying  two  or 
three  more,  simply  because  they  were  too  exquisite  and 
Undine  looked  too  lovely  in  them;  but  she  had  grown 
tired  of  these  also — tired  of  seeing  them  hang  unworn 
in  her  wardrobe,  like  so  many  derisive  points  of  inter 
rogation.  And  now,  as  Celeste  spread  them  out  on  the 
bed,  they  seemed  disgustingly  common-place,  and  as 
familiar  as  if  she  had  danced  them  to  shreds.  Never 
theless,  she  yielded  to  the  maid's  persuasions  and  tried 
them  on. 

The  first  and  second  did  not  gain  by  prolonged  in- 
[20] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

spection:  they  looked  old-fashioned  already.  "It's  some 
thing  about  the  sleeves,"  Undine  grumbled  as  she  threw 
them  aside. 

The  third  was  certainly  the  prettiest;  but  then  it  was 
the  one  she  had  worn  at  the  hotel  dance  the  night  be 
fore,  and  the  impossibility  of  wearing  it  again  within 
the  week  was  too  obvious  for  discussion.  Yet  she  en 
joyed  looking  at  herself  in  it,  for  it  reminded  her  of 
her  sparkling  passages  with  Claud  Walsingham  Popple, 
and  her  quieter  but  more  fruitful  talk  with  his  little 
friend — the  young  man  she  had  hardly  noticed. 

"You  can  go,  Celeste — I'll  take  off  the  dress  my 
self,"  she  said:  and  when  Celeste  had  passed  out,  laden 
with  discarded  finery,  Undine  bolted  her  door,  dragged 
the  tall  pier-glass  forward  and,  rummaging  in  a  drawer 
for  fan  and  gloves,  swept  to  a  seat  before  the  mirror 
with  the  air  of  a  lady  arriving  at  an  evening  party. 
Celeste,  before  leaving,  had  drawn  down  the  blinds 
and  turned  on  the  electric  light,  and  the  white  and 
gold  room,  with  its  blazing  wall-brackets,  formed  a  suf 
ficiently  brilliant  background  to  carry  out  the  illusion. 
So  untempered  a  glare  would  have  been  destructive  to 
all  half-tones  and  subtleties  of  modelling;  but  Undine's 
beauty  was  as  vivid,  and  almost  as  crude,  as  the  bright 
ness  suffusing  it.  Her  black  brows,  her  reddish-tawny 
hair  and  the  pure  red  and  white  of  her  complexion 
defied  the  searching  decomposing  radiance:  she  might 
have  been  some  fabled  creature  whose  home  was  in  a 
beam  of  light. 

[21] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine,  as  a  child,  had  taken  but  a  lukewarm  inter 
est  in  the  diversions  of  her  playmates.  Even  in  the 
early  days  when  she  had  lived  with  her  parents  in  a 
ragged  outskirt  of  Apex,  and  hung  on  the  fence  with 
Indiana  Frusk,  the  freckled  daughter  of  the  plumber 
"across  the  way,"  she  had  cared  little  for  dolls  or 
skipping-ropes,  and  still  less  for  the  riotous  games  in 
which  the  loud  Indiana  played  Atalanta  to  all  the  boy 
hood  of  the  quarter.  Already  Undine's  chief  delight  was 
to  "dress  up"  in  her  mother's  Sunday  skirt  and  "play 
lady"  before  the  wardrobe  mirror.  The  taste  had  out 
lasted  childhood,  and  she  still  practised  the  same  se 
cret  pantomime,  gliding  in,  settling  her  skirts,  sway 
ing  her  fan,  moving  her  lips  in  soundless  talk  and 
laughter;  but  lately  she  had  shrunk  from  everything 
that  reminded  her  of  her  baffled  social  yearnings.  Now, 
however,  she  could  yield  without  afterthought  to  the 
joy  of  dramatizing  her  beauty.  Within  a  few  days  she 
would  be  enacting  the  scene  she  was  now  mimicking; 
and  it  amused  her  to  see  in  advance  just  what  impres 
sion  she  would  produce  on  Mrs.  Fairford's  guests. 

For  a  while  she  carried  on  her  chat  with  an  imagi 
nary  circle  of  admirers,  twisting  this  way  and  that,  fan 
ning,  fidgeting,  twitching  at  her  draperies,  as  she  did 
in  real  life  when  people  were  noticing  her.  Her  inces 
sant  movements  were  not  the  result  of  shyness:  she 
thought  it  the  correct  thing  to  be  animated  in  society, 
and  noise  and  restlessness  were  her  only  notion  of  vi 
vacity.  She  therefore  watched  herself  approvingly,  ad- 

[22] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

miring  the  light  on  her  hair,  the  flash  of  teeth  between 
her  smiling  lips,  the  pure  shadows  of  her  throat  arid 
shoulders  as  she  passed  from  one  attitude  to  another. 
Only  one  fact  disturbed  her:  there  was  a  hint  of  too 
much  fulness  in  the  curves  of  her  neck  and  in  the  spring 
of  her  hips.  She  was  tall  enough  to  carry  off  a  little 
extra  weight,  but  excessive  slimness  was  the  fashion, 
and  she  shuddered  at  the  thought  that  she  might  some 
day  deviate  from  the  perpendicular. 

Presently  she  ceased  to  twist  and  sparkle  at  her  image, 
and  sinking  into  her  chair  gave  herself  up  to  retrospec 
tion.  She  was  vexed,  in  looking  back,  to  think  how  little 
notice  she  had  taken  of  young  Marvell,  who  turned  out 
to  be  so  much  less  negligible  than  his  brilliant  friend. 
She  remembered  thinking  him  rather  shy,  less  accus 
tomed  to  society;  and  though  in  his  quiet  deprecating 
way  he  had  said  one  or  two  droll  things  he  lacked  Mr. 
Popple's  masterly  manner,  his  domineering  yet  caress 
ing  address.  When  Mr.  Popple  had  fixed  his  black  eyes 
on  Undine,  and  murmured  something  "artistic"  about 
the  colour  of  her  hair,  she  had  thrilled  to  the  depths  of 
her  being.  Even  now  it  seemed  incredible  that  he  should 
not  turn  out  to  be  more  distinguished  than  young  Mar 
vell:  he  seemed  so  much  more  in  the  key  of  the  world 
she  read  about  in  the  Sunday  papers — the  dazzling  au 
riferous  world  of  the  Van  Degens,  the  Driscolls  and 
their  peers. 

She  was  roused  by  the  sound  in  the  hall  of  her 
[23] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

mother's  last  words  to  Mrs.  Heeny.  Undine  waited  till 
their  adieux  were  over;  then,  opening  her  door,  she 
seized  the  astonished  masseuse  and  dragged  her  into 
the  room. 

Mrs.  Heeny  gazed  in  admiration  at  the  luminous  ap 
parition  in  whose  hold  she  found  herself. 

"Mercy,  Undine — you  do  look  stunning!  Are  you 
trying  on  your  dress  for  Mrs.  Fairford's?" 

"Yes — no — this  is  only  an  old  thing."  The  girl's  eyes 
glittered  under  their  black  brows.  "Mrs.  Heeny,  you've 
got  to  tell  me  the  truth — are  they  as  swell  as  you  said?  " 

"Who?  The  Fairfords  and  Marvells?  If  they  ain't 
swell  enough  for  you,  Undine  Spragg,  you'd  better  go 
right  over  to  the  court  of  England!" 

Undine  straightened  herself.  "I  want  the  best.  Are 
they  as  swell  as  the  Driscolls  and  Van  Degens?" 

Mrs.  Heeny  sounded  a  scornful  laugh.  "Look  at 
here,  now,  you  unbelieving  girl!  As  sure  as  I'm  stand 
ing  here  before  you,  I've  seen  Mrs.  Harmon  B.  Dris- 
coll  of  Fifth  Avenue  laying  in  her  pink  velvet  bed  with 
Honiton  lace  sheets  on  it,  and  crying  her  eyes  out  be 
cause  she  couldn't  get  asked  to  one  of  Mrs.  Paul  Mar- 
veil's  musicals.  She'd  never  'a  dreamt  of  being  asked 
to  a  dinner  there!  Not  all  of  her  money  couldn't  'a 
bought  her  that — and  she  knows  it!" 

Undine  stood  for  a  moment  with  bright  cheeks  and 
parted  lips;  then  she  flung  her  soft  arms  about  the 
masseuse. 

[24] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Oh,  Mrs.  Heeny — you're  lovely  to  me!"  she 
breathed,  her  lips  on  Mrs.  Heeny's  rusty  veil;  while 
the  latter,  freeing  herself  with  a  good-natured  laugh, 
said  as  she  turned  away:  "Go  steady,  Undine,  and 
you'll  get  anywheres." 

Go  steady,  Undine!  Yes,  that  was  the  advice  she 
needed.  Sometimes,  in  her  dark  moods,  she  blamed  her 
parents  for  not  having  given  it  to  her.  She  was  so 
young  .  .  .  and  they  had  told  her  so  little !  As  she  looked 
back  she  shuddered  at  some  of  her  escapes.  Even  since 
they  had  come  to  New  York  she  had  been  on  the  verge 
of  one  or  two  perilous  adventures,  and  there  had  been 
a  moment  during  their  first  winter  when  she  had  ac 
tually  engaged  herself  to  the  handsome  Austrian  ri 
ding-master  who  accompanied  her  in  the  Park.  He  had 
carelessly  shown  her  a  card-case  with  a  coronet,  and  had 
confided  in  her  that  he  had  been  forced  to  resign  from 
a  crack  cavalry  regiment  for  fighting  a  duel  about  a 
Countess;  and  as  a  result  of  these  confidences  she  had 
pledged  herself  to  him,  and  bestowed  on  him  her  pink 
pearl  ring  in  exchange  for  one  of  twisted  silver,  which 
he  said  the  Countess  had  given  him  on  her  deathbed 
with  the  request  that  he  should  never  take  it  off  till  he 
met  a  woman  more  beautiful  than  herself. 

Soon  afterward,  luckily,  Undine  had  run  across  Mabel 
Lipscomb,  whom  she  had  known  at  a  middle  western 
boarding-school  as  Mabel  Blitch.  Miss  Blitch  occupied 
a  position  of  distinction  as  the  only  New  York  girl  at 

[25] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

the  school,  and  for  a  time  there  had  been  sharp  rivalry 
for  her  favour  between  Undine  and  Indiana  Frusk, 
whose  parents  had  somehow  contrived — for  one  term 
— to  obtain  her  admission  to  the  same  establishment. 
In  spite  of  Indiana's  unscrupulous  methods,  and  of  a 
certain  violent  way  she  had  of  capturing  attention,  the 
victory  remained  with  Undine,  whom  Mabel  pro 
nounced  more  refined;  and  the  discomfited  Indiana, 
denouncing  her  schoolmates  as  a  "bunch  of  mushes," 
had  disappeared  forever  from  the  scene  of  her  de 
feat. 

Since  then  Mabel  had  returned  to  New  York  and 
married  a  stock-broker;  and  Undine's  first  steps  in 
social  enlightenment  dated  from  the  day  when  she  had 
met  Mrs.  Harry  Lipscomb,  and  been  again  taken  under 
her  wing. 

Harry  Lipscomb  had  insisted  on  investigating  the 
riding-master's  record,  and  had  found  that  his  real 
name  was  Aaronson,  and  that  he  had  left  Cracow  under 
a  charge  of  swindling  servant-girls  out  of  their  savings; 
in  the  light  of  which  discoveries  Undine  noticed  for 
the  first  time  that  his  lips  were  too  red  and  that  his 
hair  was  pommaded.  That  was  one  of  the  episodes  that 
sickened  her  as  she  looked  back,  and  made  her  resolve 
once  more  to  trust  less  to  her  impulses — especially  in 
the  matter  of  giving  away  rings.  In  the  interval, 
however,  she  felt  she  had  learned  a  good  deal,  espe 
cially  since,  by  Mabel  Lipscomb's  advice,  the  Spraggs 

[26] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

had  moved  to  the  Stentorian,  where  that  lady  was 
herself  established. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  monopolist  about  Mabel, 
and  she  lost  no  time  in  making  Undine  free  of  the 
Stentorian  group  and  its  affiliated  branches:  a  society 
addicted  to  "days,"  and  linked  together  by  member 
ship  in  countless  clubs,  mundane,  cultural  or  "earnest." 
Mabel  took  Undine  to  the  days,  and  introduced  her  as 
a  "guest"  to  the  club-meetings,  where  she  was  sup 
ported  by  the  presence  of  many  other  guests — "my 
friend  Miss  Stager,  of  Phalanx,  Georgia,"  or  (if  the 
lady  were  literary)  simply  "my  friend  Ora  Prance 
Chettle  of  Nebraska — you  know  what  Mrs.  Chettle 
stands  for." 

Some  of  these  reunions  took  place  in  the  lofty  hotels 
moored  like  a  sonorously  named  fleet  of  battle-ships 
along  the  upper  reaches  of  the  West  Side:  the  Olym 
pian,  the  Incandescent,  the  Ormolu;  while  others,  per 
haps  the  more  exclusive,  were  held  in  the  equally  lofty 
but  more  romantically  styled  apartment-houses:  the 
Parthenon,  the  Tintern  Abbey  or  the  Lido.  Undine's 
preference  was  for  the  worldly  parties,  at  which  games 
were  played,  and  she  returned  home  laden  with  prizes 
in  Dutch  silver;  but  she  was  duly  impressed  by  the  de 
bating  clubs,  where  ladies  of  local  distinction  addressed 
the  company  from  an  improvised  platform,  or  the  mem 
bers  argued  on  subjects  of  such  imperishable  interest 
as:  "What  is  charm?"  or  "The  Problem-Novel"— 

[27] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

after  which  pink  lemonade  and  rainbow  sandwiches 
were  consumed  amid  heated  discussion  of  the  "ethical 
aspect"  of  the  question. 

It  was  all  very  novel  and  interesting,  and  at  first 
Undine  envied  Mabel  Lipscomb  for  having  made  her 
self  a  place  in  such  circles;  but  in  time  she  began  to 
despise  her  for  being  content  to  remain  there.  For  it 
did  not  take  Undine  long  to  learn  that  introduction 
to  Mabel's  "set"  had  brought  her  no  nearer  to  Fifth 
Avenue.  Even  in  Apex,  Undine's  tender  imagination 
had  been  nurtured  on  the  feats  and  gestures  of  Fifth 
Avenue.  She  knew  all  of  New  York's  golden  aristoc 
racy  by  name,  and  the  lineaments  of  its  most  distin 
guished  scions  had  been  made  familiar  by  passionate 
poring  over  the  daily  press.  In  Mabel's  world  she  sought 
in  vain  for  the  originals,  and  only  now  and  then  caught 
a  tantalizing  glimpse  of  one  of  their  familiars :  as  when 
Claud  Walsingham  Popple,  engaged  on  the  portrait  of 
a  lady  whom  the  Lipscombs  described  as  "the  wife  of 
a  Steel  Magnet,"  felt  it  his  duty  to  attend  one  of  his 
client's  teas,  where  it  became  Mabel's  privilege  to  make 
his  acquaintance  and  to  name  to  him  her  friend  Miss 
Spragg. 

Unsuspected  social  gradations  were  thus  revealed  to 
the  attentive  Undine,  but  she  was  beginning  to  think 
that  her  sad  proficiency  had  been  acquired  in  vain 
when  her  hopes  were  revived  by  the  appearance  of  Mr. 
Popple  and  his  friend  at  the  Stentorian  dance.  She 

[281 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

thought  she  had  learned  enough  to  be  safe  from  any 
risk  of  repeating  the  hideous  Aaronson  mistake;  yet 
she  now  saw  she  had  blundered  again  in  distinguishing 
Claud  Walsingham  Popple  while  she  almost  snubbed 
his  more  retiring  companion.  It  was  all  very  puzzling, 
and  her  perplexity  had  been  farther  increased  by  Mrs. 
Heeny's  tale  of  the  great  Mrs.  Harmon  B.  Driscoll's 
despair. 

Hitherto  Undine  had  imagined  that  the  Driscoll  and 
Van  Degen  clans  and  their  allies  held  undisputed 
suzerainty  over  New  York  society.  Mabel  Lipscomb 
thought  so  too,  and  was  given  to  bragging  of  her  ac 
quaintance  with  a  Mrs.  Spoff,  who  was  merely  a  sec 
ond  cousin  of  Mrs.  Harmon  B.  Driscoll's.  Yet  here  was 
she,  Undine  Spragg  of  Apex,  about  to  be  introduced 
into  an  inner  circle  to  which  Driscolls  and  Van  Degens 
had  laid  siege  in  vain!  It  was  enough  to  make  her  feel 
a  little  dizzy  with  her  triumph — to  work  her  up  into 
that  state  of  perilous  self-confidence  in  which  all  her 
worst  follies  had  been  committed. 

She  stood  up  and,  going  close  to  the  glass,  examined 
the  reflection  of  her  bright  eyes  and  glowing  cheeks. 
This  time  her  fears  were  superfluous:  there  were  to  be 
no  more  mistakes  and  no  more  follies  now!  She  was 
going  to  know  the  right  people  at  last — she  was  going 
to  get  what  she  wanted! 

As  she  stood  there,  smiling  at  her  happy  image,  she 
heard  her  father's  voice  in  the  room  beyond,  and  in- 

[29] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

stantly  began  to  tear  off  her  dress,  strip  the  long 
gloves  from  her  arms  and  unpin  the  rose  in  her 
hair.  Tossing  the  fallen  finery  aside,  she  slipped  on  a 
dressing-gown  and  opened  the  door  into  the  drawing- 
room. 

Mr.  Spragg  was  standing  near  her  mother,  who  sat 
in  a  drooping  attitude,  her  head  sunk  on  her  breast, 
as  she  did  when  she  had  one  of  her  "turns."  He  looked 
up  abruptly  as  Undine  entered. 

"Father — has  mother  told  you?  Mrs.  Fairford  has 
asked  me  to  dine.  She's  Mrs.  Paul  Marvell's  daughter 
— Mrs.  Mar  veil  was  a  Dagonet — and  they're  sweller 
than  anybody;  they  won't  know  the  Driscolls  and  Van 
Degens!" 

Mr.  Spragg  surveyed  her  with  humorous  fondness. 

"That  so?  What  do  they  want  to  know  you  for,  I 
wonder?"  he  jeered. 

"Can't  imagine — unless  they  think  I'll  introduce 
you!"  she  jeered  back  in  the  same  key,  her  arms  around 
his  stooping  shoulders,  her  shining  hair  against  his 
cheek. 

"Well — and  are  you  going  to?  Have  you  accepted?" 
he  took  up  her  joke  as  she  held  him  pinioned;  while 
Mrs.  Spragg,  behind  them,  stirred  in  her  seat  with  a 
little  moan. 

Undine  threw  back  her  head,  plunging  her  eyes  in 
his,  and  pressing  so  close  that  to  his  tired  elderly  sight 
her  face  was  a  mere  bright  blur. 

[301 


THE   CUSTOM   OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"I  want  to  awfully,"  she  declared,  "but  I  haven't 
got  a  single  thing  to  wear." 

Mrs.  Spragg,  at  this,  moaned  more  audibly.  "Un 
dine,  I  wouldn't  ask  father  to  buy  any  more  clothes 
right  on  top  of  those  last  bills." 

"I  ain't  on  top  of  those  last  bills  yet — I'm  way 
down  under  them,"  Mr.  Spragg  interrupted,  raising 
his  hands  to  imprison  his  daughter's  slender  wrists. 

"Oh,  well — if  you  want  me  to  look  like  a  scarecrow, 
and  not  get  asked  again,  I've  got  a  dress  that'll  do 
perfectly  "  Undine  threatened,  in  a  tone  between  ban 
ter  and  vexation. 

Mr.  Spragg  held  her  away  at  arm's  length,  a  smile 
drawing  up  the  loose  wrinkles  about  his  eyes. 

"Well,  that  kind  of  dress  might  come  in  mighty 
handy  on  some  occasions;  so  I  guess  you'd  better  hold 
on  to  it  for  future  use,  and  go  and  select  another  for 
this  Fairford  dinner,"  he  said;  and  before  he  could  fin 
ish  he  was  in  her  arms  again,  and  she  was  smothering 
his  last  word  in  little  cries  and  kisses. 


Ill 

THOUGH  she  would  not  for  the  world  have  owned 
it  to  her  parents,  Undine  was  disappointed  in 
the  Fairford  dinner. 

The  house,   to  begin  with,   was   small   and   rather 
shabby.  There  was  no  gilding,  no  lavish  diffusion  of 

[31] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

light :  the  room  they  sat  in  after  dinner,  with  its  green- 
shaded  lamps  making  faint  pools  of  brightness,  and  its 
rows  of  books  from  floor  to  ceiling,  reminded  Undine 
of  the  old  circulating  library  at  Apex,  before  the  new 
marble  building  was  put  up.  Then,  instead  of  a  gas- 
log,  or  a  polished  grate  with  electric  bulbs  behind  ruby 
glass,  there  was  an  old-fashioned  wood-fire,  like  pic 
tures  of  "Back  to  the  farm  for  Christmas";  and  when 
the  logs  fell  forward  Mrs.  Fairford  or  her  brother  had 
to  jump  up  to  push  them  in  place,  and  the  ashes  scat 
tered  over  the  hearth  untidily. 

The  dinner  too  was  disappointing.  Undine  was  too 
young  to  take  note  of  culinary  details,  but  she  had 
expected  to  view  the  company  through  a  bower  of  or 
chids  and  eat  pretty-coloured  entries  in  ruffled  papers. 
Instead,  there  was  only  a  low  centre-dish  of  ferns,  and 
plain  roasted  and  broiled  meat  that  one  could  recog 
nize — as  if  they'd  been  dyspeptics  on  a  diet!  With  all 
the  hints  in  the  Sunday  papers,  she  thought  it  dull 
of  Mrs.  Fairford  not  to  have  picked  up  something 
newer;  and  as  the  evening  progressed  she  began  to 
suspect  that  it  wasn't  a  real  "dinner  party,"  and  that 
they  had  just  asked  her  in  to  share  wiiat  they  had 
when  they  were  alone. 

But  a  glance  about  the  table  convinced  her  that 
Mrs.  Fairford  could  not  have  meant  to  treat  her  other 
guests  so  lightly.  They  were  only  eight  in  number,  but 
one  was  no  less  a  person  than  young  Mrs.  Peter  Van 

[321 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Degen — the  one  who  had  been  a  Dagonet — and  the 
consideration  which  this  young  lady,  herself  one  of  the 
choicest  ornaments  of  the  Society  Column,  displayed 
toward  the  rest  of  the  company,  convinced  Undine 
that  they  must  be  more  important  than  they  looked. 
She  liked  Mrs.  Fairford,  a  small  incisive  woman,  with 
a  big  nose  and  good  teeth  revealed  by  frequent  smiles. 
In  her  dowdy  black  and  antiquated  ornaments  she 
was  not  what  Undine  would  have  called  "stylish"; 
but  she  had  a  droll  kind  way  which  reminded  the  girl 
of  her  father's  manner  when  he  was  not  tired  or  wor 
ried  about  money.  One  of  the  other  ladies,  having  white 
hair,  did  not  long  arrest  Undine's  attention;  and  the 
fourth,  a  girl  like  herself,  who  was  introduced  as  Miss 
Harriet  Ray,  she  dismissed  at  a  glance  as  plain  and 
wearing  a  last  year's  "model."  The  men,  too,  were  less 
striking  than  she  had  hoped.  She  had  not  expected 
much  of  Mr.  Fairford,  since  married  men  were  intrin 
sically  uninteresting,  and  his  baldness  and  grey  mous 
tache  seemed  naturally  to  relegate  him  to  the  back 
ground;  but  she  had  looked  for  some  brilliant  youths 
of  her  own  age — in  her  inmost  heart  she  had  looked 
for  Mr.  Popple.  He  was  not  there,  however,  and  of  the 
other  men  one,  whom  they  called  Mr.  Bowen,  was 
hopelessly  elderly — she  supposed  he  was  the  husband 
of  the  white-haired  lady — and  the  other  two,  who 
seemed  to  be  friends  of  young  Marvell's,  were  both 
lacking  in  Claud  Walsingham's  dash. 

[33] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine  sat  between  Mr.  Bowen  and  young  Marvell, 
who  struck  her  as  very  "sweet"  (it  was  her  word  for 
friendliness),  but  even  shyer  than  at  the  hotel  dance. 
Yet  she  was  not  sure  if  he  were  shy,  or  if  his  quietness 
were  only  a  new  kind  of  self-possession  which  expressed 
itself  negatively  instead  of  aggressively.  Small,  well- 
knit,  fair,  he  sat  stroking  his  slight  blond  moustache 
and  looking  at  her  with  kindly,  almost  tender  eyes; 
but  he  left  it  to  his  sister  and  the  others  to  draw  her 
out  and  fit  her  into  the  pattern. 

Mrs.  Fairford  talked  so  well  that  the  girl  wondered 
why  Mrs.  Heeny  had  found  her  lacking  in  conversa 
tion.  But  though  Undine  thought  silent  people  awk 
ward  she  was  not  easily  impressed  by  verbal  fluency. 
All  the  ladies  in  Apex  City  were  more  voluble  than 
Mrs.  Fairford,  and  had  a  larger  vocabulary:  the  differ 
ence  was  that  with  Mrs.  Fairford  conversation  seemed 
to  be  a  concert  and  not  a  solo.  She  kept  drawing  in 
the  others,  giving  each  a  turn,  beating  time  for  them 
with  her  smile,  and  somehow  harmonizing  and  linking 
together  what  they  said.  She  took  particular  pains  to 
give  Undine  her  due  part  in  the  performance;  but  the 
girl's  expansive  impulses  were  always  balanced  by  odd 
reactions  of  mistrust,  and  to-night  the  latter  prevailed. 
She  meant  to  watch  and  listen  without  letting  herself 
go,  and  she  sat  very  straight  and  pink,  answering 
promptly  but  briefly,  with  the  nervous  laugh  that 
punctuated  all  her  phrases — saying  "I  don't  care  if  I 

[341 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

do"  when  her  host  asked  her  to  try  some  grapes,  and 
"I  wouldn't  wonder"  when  she  thought  any  one  was 
trying  to  astonish  her. 

This  state  of  lucidity  enabled  her  to  take  note  of  all 
that  was  being  said.  The  talk  ran  more  on  general 
questions,  and  less  on  people,  than  she  was  used  to; 
but  though  the  allusions  to  pictures  and  books  escaped 
her,  she  caught  and  stored  up  every  personal  reference, 
and  the  pink  in  her  cheeks  deepened  at  a  random  men 
tion  of  Mr.  Popple. 

"Yes — he's  doing  me,"  Mrs.  Peter  Van  Degen  was 
saying,  in  her  slightly  drawling  voice.  "He's  doing 
everybody  this  year,  you  know " 

"As  if  that  were  a  reason!"  Undine  heard  Mrs. 
Fairford  breathe  to  Mr.  Bowen;  who  replied,  at  the 
same  pitch:  "It's  a  Van  Degen  reason,  isn't  it?" — to 
which  Mrs.  Fairford  shrugged  assentingly. 

"That  delightful  Popple — he  paints  so  exactly  as 
he  talks!"  the  white-haired  lady  took  it  up.  "All  his 
portraits  seem  to  proclaim  what  a  gentleman  he  is, 
and  how  he  fascinates  women!  They're  not  pictures  of 
Mrs.  or  Miss  So-and-so,  but  simply  of  the  impression 
Popple  thinks  he's  made  on  them." 

Mrs.  Fairford  smiled.  "I've  sometimes  thought," 
she  mused,  "that  Mr.  Popple  must  be  the  only  gen 
tleman  I  know;  at  least  he's  the  only  man  who  has 
ever  told  me  he  was  a  gentleman — and  Mr.  Popple 
never  fails  to  mention  it." 

[35] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine's  ear  was  too  well  attuned  to  the  national 
note  of  irony  for  her  not  to  perceive  that  her  com 
panions  were  making  sport  of  the  painter.  She  winced 
at  their  banter  as  if  it  had  been  at  her  own  expense, 
yet  it  gave  her  a  dizzy  sense  of  being  at  last  in  the 
very  stronghold  of  fashion.  Her  attention  was  diverted 
by  hearing  Mrs.  Van  Degen,  under  cover  of  the  gen 
eral  laugh,  say  in  a  low  tone  to  young  Marvell:  "I 
thought  you  liked  his  things,  or  I  wouldn't  have  had 
him  paint  me.'* 

Something  in  her  tone  made  all  Undine's  percep 
tions  bristle,  and  she  strained  her  ears  for  the  answer. 

"  I  think  he'll  do  you  capitally — you  must  let  me  come 
and  see  some  day  soon."  Marvell's  tone  was  always  so 
light,  so  unemphasized,  that  she  could  not  be  sure  of 
its  being  as  indifferent  as  it  sounded.  She  looked  down 
at  the  fruit  on  her  plate  and  shot  a  side-glance  through 
her  lashes  at  Mrs.  Peter  Van  Degen. 

Mrs.  Van  Degen  was  neither  beautiful  nor  imposing: 
just  a  dark  girlish-looking  creature  with  plaintive  eyes 
and  a  fidgety  frequent  laugh.  But  she  was  more  elab 
orately  dressed  and  jewelled  than  the  other  ladies,  and 
her  elegance  and  her  restlessness  made  her  seem  less 
alien  to  Undine.  She  had  turned  on  Marvell  a  gaze  at 
once  pleading  and  possessive;  but  whether  betokening 
merely  an  inherited  intimacy  (Undine  had  noticed  that 
they  were  all  more  or  less  cousins)  or  a  more  personal 
feeling,  her  observer  was  unable  to  decide;  just  as  the 

[36] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

tone  of  the  young  man's  reply  might  have  expressed 
the  open  avowal  of  good-fellowship  or  the  disguise  of 
a  different  sentiment.  All  was  blurred  and  puzzling 
to  the  girl  in  this  world  of  half-lights,  half-tones,  elimi 
nations  and  abbreviations;  and  she  felt  a  violent  long, 
ing  to  brush  away  the  cobwebs  and  assert  herself  as  the 
dominant  figure  of  the  scene. 

Yet  in  the  drawing-room,  with  the  ladies,  where 
Mrs.  Fairford  came  and  sat  by  her,  the  spirit  of  cau 
tion  once  more  prevailed.  She  wanted  to  be  noticed 
but  she  dreaded  to  be  patronized,  and  here  again  her 
hostess's  gradations  of  tone  were  confusing.  Mrs.  Fair- 
ford  made  no  tactless  allusions  to  her  being  a  newcomer 
in  New  York — there  was  nothing  as  bitter  to  the  girl 
as  that — but  her  questions  as  to  what  pictures  had  in 
terested  Undine  at  the  various  exhibitions  of  the  mo 
ment,  and  which  of  the  new  books  she  had  read,  were 
almost  as  open  to  suspicion,  since  they  had  to  be  an 
swered  in  the  negative.  Undine  did  not  even  know  that 
there  were  any  pictures  to  be  seen,  much  less  that 
"people"  went  to  see  them;  and  she  had  read  no  new 
book  but  "When  The  Kissing  Had  to  Stop,"  of  which 
Mrs.  Fairford  seemed  not  to  have  heard.  On  the  thea 
tre  they  were  equally  at  odds,  for  while  Undine  had  seen 
"Oolaloo"  fourteen  times,  and  was  "wild"  about  Ned 
Norris  in  "The  Soda-Water  Fountain,"  she  had  not 
heard  of  the  famous  Berlin  comedians  who  were  per 
forming  Shakespeare  at  the  German  Theatre,  and  knew 

[371 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

only  by  name  the  clever  American  actress  who  was 
trying  to  give  "repertory"  plays  with  a  good  stock 
company.  The  conversation  was  revived  for  a  moment 
by  her  recalling  that  she  had  seen  Sarah  Burnhard  in  a 
play  she  called  "Leg-long,"  and  another  which  she  pro 
nounced  "Fade";  but  even  this  did  not  carry  them 
far,  as  she  had  forgotten  what  both  plays  were  about 
and  had  found  the  actress  a  good  deal  older  than  she 
expected. 

Matters  were  not  improved  by  the  return  of  the  men 
from  the  smoking-room.  Henley  Fairford  replaced 
his  wife  at  Undine's  side;  and  since  it  was  unheard-of 
at  Apex  for  a  married  man  to  force  his  society  on  a 
young  girl,  she  inferred  that  the  others  didn't  care  to 
talk  to  her,  and  that  her  host  and  hostess  were  in  league 
to  take  her  off  their  hands.  This  discovery  resulted 
in  her  holding  her  vivid  head  very  high,  and  answer 
ing  "I  couldn't  really  say,"  or  "Is  that  so?"  to  all  Mr. 
Fairford's  ventures;  and  as  these  were  neither  numer 
ous  nor  striking  it  was  a  relief  to  both  when  the  rising 
of  the  elderly  lady  gave  the  signal  for  departure. 

In  the  hall,  where  young  Marvell  had  managed  to 
precede  her,  Undine  found  Mrs.  Van  Degen  putting  on 
her  cloak.  As  she  gathered  it  about  her  she  laid  her  hand 
on  Marvell's  arm. 

"Ralphie,  dear,  you'll  come  to  the  opera  with  me  on 
Friday?  We'll  dine  together  first — Peter's  got  a  club 
dinner."  They  exchanged  what  seemed  a  smile  of  intel- 

[381 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

ligence,  and  Undine  heard  the  young  man  accept.  Then 
Mrs.  Van  Degen  turned  to  her. 

"Good-bye,  Miss  Spragg.  I  hope  you'll  come — 

" — to  dine  with  me  too?"  That  must  be  what  she  was 
going  to  say,  and  Undine's  heart  gave  a  bound. 

" — to  see  me  some  afternoon,"  Mrs.  Van  Degen 
ended,  going  down  the  steps  to  her  motor,  at  the  door 
of  which  a  much-furred  footman  waited  with  more 
furs  on  his  arm. 

Undine's  face  burned  as  she  turned  to  receive  her 
cloak.  When  she  had  drawn  it  on  with  haughty  delib 
eration  she  found  Marvell  at  her  side,  in  hat  and  over 
coat,  and  her  heart  gave  a  higher  bound.  He  was  going 
to  "escort"  her  home,  of  course!  This  brilliant  youth — 
she  felt  now  that  he  was  brilliant — who  dined  alone  with 
married  women,  whom  the  "Van  Degen  set"  called 
"Ralphie,  dear,"  had  really  no  eyes  for  any  one  but 
herself;  and  at  the  thought  her  lost  self-complacency 
flowed  back  warm  through  her  veins. 

The  street  was  coated  with  ice,  and  she  had  a  deli 
cious  moment  descending  the  steps  on  Marvell's  arm, 
and  holding  it  fast  while  they  waited  for  her  cab  to 
come  up;  but  when  he  had  helped  her  in  he  closed  the 
door  and  held  his  hand  out  over  the  lowered  window. 

"Good-bye,"  he  said,  smiling;  and  she  could  not  help 
the  break  of  pride  in  her  voice,  as  she  faltered  out  stu 
pidly,  from  the  depths  of  her  disillusionment:  "Oh — 
good-bye." 

[391 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


IV 


'  TTWTHER,  you've  got  to  take  a  box  for  me  at  the 

A      opera  next  Friday." 

From  the  tone  of  her  voice  Undine's  parents  knew 
at  once  that  she  was  "nervous." 

They  had  counted  a  great  deal  on  the  Fairf  ord  dinner 
as  a  means  of  tranquillization,  and  it  was  a  blow  to 
detect  signs  of  the  opposite  result  when,  late  the  next 
morning,  their  daughter  came  dawdling  into  the  sod 
den  splendour  of  the  Stentorian  breakfast-room. 

The  symptoms  of  Undine's  nervousness  were  unmis 
takable  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Spragg.  They  could  read  the 
approaching  storm  in  the  darkening  of  her  eyes  from 
limpid  grey  to  slate-colour,  and  in  the  way  her  straight 
black  brows  met  above  them  and  the  red  curves  of  her 
lips  narrowed  to  a  parallel  line  below. 

Mr.  Spragg,  having  finished  the  last  course  of  his 
heterogeneous  meal,  was  adjusting  his  gold  eye-glasses 
for  a  glance  at  the  paper  when  Undine  trailed  down 
the  sumptuous  stuffy  room,  where  coffee-fumes  hung 
perpetually  under  the  emblazoned  ceiling  and  the 
spongy  carpet  might  have  absorbed  a  year's  crumbs 
without  a  sweeping. 

About  them  sat  other  pallid  families,  richly  dressed, 
and  silently  eating  their  way  through  a  bill-of-fare 
which  seemed  to  have  ransacked  the  globe  for  gastro- 

[40] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

nomic  incompatibilities;  and  in  the  middle  of  the  room 
a  knot  of  equally  pallid  waiters,  engaged  in  languid 
conversation,  turned  their  backs  by  common  consent 
on  the  persons  they  were  supposed  to  serve. 

Undine,  who  rose  too  late  to  share  the  family  break 
fast,  usually  had  her  chocolate  brought  to  her  in  bed 
by  Celeste,  after  the  manner  described  in  the  articles 
on  "A  Society  Woman's  Day"  which  were  appearing 
in  Boudoir  Chat.  Her  mere  appearance  in  the  restau 
rant  therefore  prepared  her  parents  for  those  symp 
toms  of  excessive  tension  which  a  nearer  inspection 
confirmed,  and  Mr.  Spragg  folded  his  paper  and  hooked 
his  glasses  to  his  waistcoat  with  the  air  of  a  man  who 
prefers  to  know  the  worst  and  have  it  over. 

"An  opera  box!"  faltered  Mrs.  Spragg,  pushing  aside 
the  bananas  and  cream  with  which  she  had  been  trying 
to  tempt  an  appetite  too  languid  for  fried  liver  or 
crab  mayonnaise. 

"A  parterre  box,"  Undine  corrected,  ignoring  the 
exclamation,  and  continuing  to  address  herself  to  her 
father.  "Friday's  the  stylish  night,  and  that  new  tenor's 
going  to  sing  again  in  'Cavaleeria,'"  she  condescended 
to  explain. 

"That  so?"  Mr.  Spragg  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
waistcoat  pockets,  and  began  to  tilt  his  chair  till  he 
remembered  there  was  no  wall  to  meet  it.  He  regained 
his  balance  and  said:  "Wouldn't  a  couple  of  good  or 
chestra  seats  do  you?" 

[411 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"No;  they  wouldn't/'  Undine  answered  with  a  dark 
ening  brow. 

He  looked  at  her  humorously.  "You  invited  the 
whole  dinner-party,  I  suppose?" 

"No — no  one." 

"Going  all  alone  in  a  box?"  She  was  disdainfully 
silent.  "I  don't  s'pose  you're  thinking  of  taking  mother 
and  me?" 

This  was  so  obviously  comic  that  they  all  laughed — 
even  Mrs.  Spragg — and  Undine  went  on  more  mildly: 
"I  want  to  do  something  for  Mabel  Lipscomb:  make 
some  return.  She's  always  taking  me  'round,  and  I've 
never  done  a  thing  for  her — not  a  single  thing." 

This  appeal  to  the  national  belief  in  the  duty  of  re 
ciprocal  "treating"  could  not  fail  of  its  effect,  and  Mrs. 

Spragg  murmured:  "She  never  has,  Abner," but 

Mr.  Spragg's  brow  remained  unrelenting. 

"Do  you  know  what  a  box  costs?" 

"No;  but  I  s'pose  you  do,"  Undine  returned  with 
unconscious  flippancy. 

"I  do.  That's  the  trouble.  Why  won't  seats  do 
you?" 

"Mabel  could  buy  seats  for  herself." 

"That's  so,"  interpolated  Mrs.  Spragg — always  the 
first  to  succumb  to  her  daughter's  arguments. 

"Well,  I  guess  I  can't  buy  a  box  for  her." 

Undine's  face  gloomed  more  deeply.  She  sat  silent, 
her  chocolate  thickening  in  the  cup,  while  one  hand, 

[421 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

almost  as  much  beringed  as  her  mother's,  drummed 
on  the  crumpled  table-cloth. 

"We  might  as  well  go  straight  back  to  Apex,"  she 
breathed  at  last  between  her  teeth. 

Mrs.  Spragg  cast  a  frightened  glance  at  her  husband. 
These  struggles  between  two  resolute  wills  always 
brought  on  her  palpitations,  and  she  wished  she  had 
her  phial  of  digitalis  with  her. 

"A  parterre  box  costs  a  hundred  and  twenty-five 
dollars  a  night,"  said  Mr.  Spragg,  transferring  a  tooth 
pick  to  his  waistcoat  pocket. 

"I  only  want  it  once." 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  quizzical  puckering  of  his 
crows'-feet.  "You  only  want  most  things  once,  Un 
dine." 

It  was  an  observation  they  had  made  in  her  earliest 
youth — Undine  never  wanted  anything  long,  but  she 
wanted  it  "right  oft7."  And  until  she  got  it  the  house 
was  uninhabitable. 

"I'd  a  good  deal  rather  have  a  box  for  the  season," 
she  rejoined,  and  he  saw  the  opening  he  had  given  her. 
She  had  two  ways  of  getting  things  out  of  him  against 
his  principles;  the  tender  wheedling  way,  and  the 
harsh-lipped  and  cold — and  he  did  not  know  which  he 
dreaded  most.  As  a  child  they  had  admired  her  assert- 
iveness,  had  made  Apex  ring  with  their  boasts  of  it; 
but  it  had  long  since  cowed  Mrs.  Spragg,  and  it  was 
beginning  to  frighten  her  husband. 

[431 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Fact  is,  Undie,"  he  said,  weakening,  "I'm  a  little 
mite  strapped  just  this  month." 

Her  eyes  grew  absent-minded,  as  they  always  did 
when  he  alluded  to  business.  That  was  man's  province; 
and  what  did  men  go  "down  town"  for  but  to  bring 
back  the  spoils  to  their  women?  She  rose  abruptly, 
leaving  her  parents  seated,  and  said,  more  to  herself 
than  the  others:  "Think  I'll  go  for  a  ride." 

"Oh,  Undine!"  fluttered  Mrs.  Spragg.  She  always 
had  palpitations  when  Undine  rode,  and  since  the 
Aaronson  episode  her  fears  were  not  confined  to  what 
the  horse  might  do. 

"Why  don't  you  take  your  mother  out  shopping  a 
little?"  Mr.  Spragg  suggested,  conscious  of  the  limi 
tation  of  his  resources. 

Undine  made  no  answer,  but  swept  down  the  room, 
and  out  of  the  door  ahead  of  her  mother,  with  scorn 
and  anger  in  every  line  of  her  arrogant  young  back. 
Mrs.  Spragg  tottered  meekly  after  her,  and  Mr.  Spragg 
lounged  out  into  the  marble  hall  to  buy  a  cigar  before 
taking  the  Subway  to  his  office. 

Undine  went  for  a  ride,  not  because  she  felt  particu 
larly  disposed  for  the  exercise,  but  because  she  wished 
to  discipline  her  mother.  She  was  almost  sure  she 
would  get  her  opera  box,  but  she  did  not  see  why  she 
should  have  to  struggle  for  her  rights,  and  she  was 
especially  annoyed  with  Mrs.  Spragg  for  seconding  her 

[441 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

so  half-heartedly.  If  she  and  her  mother  did  not  hold 
together  in  such  crises  she  would  have  twice  the  work 
to  do. 

Undine  hated  "scenes":  she  was  essentially  peace- 
loving,  and  would  have  preferred  to  live  on  terms  of 
unbroken  harmony  with  her  parents.  But  she  could 
not  help  it  if  they  were  unreasonable.  Ever  since  she 
could  remember  there  had  been  "fusses"  about  money; 
yet  she  and  her  mother  had  always  got  what  they 
wanted,  apparently  without  lasting  detriment  to  the 
family  fortunes.  It  was  therefore  natural  to  conclude 
that  there  were  ample  funds  to  draw  upon,  and  that 
Mr.  Spragg's  occasional  resistances  were  merely  due 
to  an  imperfect  understanding  of  what  constituted  the 
necessities  of  life. 

When  she  returned  from  her  ride  Mrs.  Spragg  re 
ceived  her  as  if  she  had  come  back  from  the  dead.  It  was 
absurd,  of  course;  but  Undine  was  inured  to  the  ab 
surdity  of  parents. 

"Has  father  telephoned?"  was  her  first  brief  ques 
tion. 

"No,  he  hasn't  yet." 

Undine's  lips  tightened,  but  she  proceeded  deliber 
ately  with  the  removal  of  her  habit. 

"You'd  think  I'd  asked  him  to  buy  me  the  Opera 
House,  the  way  he's  acting  over  a  single  box,"  she  mut 
tered,  flinging  aside  her  smartly-fitting  coat. 

Mrs.  Spragg  received  the  flying  garment  and 
[45] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

smoothed  it  out  on  the  bed.  Neither  of  the  ladies  could 
"bear"  to  have  their  maid  about  when  they  were  at 
their  toilet,  and  Mrs.  Spragg  had  always  performed 
these  ancillary  services  for  Undine. 

"You  know,  Undie,  father  hasn't  always  got  the 
money  in  his  pocket,  and  the  bills  have  been  pretty 
heavy  lately.  Father  was  a  rich  man  for  Apex,  but  that's 
different  from  being  rich  in  New  York." 

She  stood  before  her  daughter,  looking  down  on  her 
appealingly. 

Undine,  who  had  seated  herself  while  she  detached 
her  stock  and  waistcoat,  raised  her  head  with  an  im 
patient  jerk.  "Why  on  earth  did  we  ever  leave  Apex, 
then?"  she  exclaimed. 

Mrs.  Spragg's  eyes  usually  dropped  before  her  daugh 
ter's  inclement  gaze;  but  on  this  occasion  they  held 
their  own  with  a  kind  of  awe-struck  courage,  till  Un 
dine's  lids  sank  above  her  flushing  cheeks. 

She  sprang  up,  tugging  at  the  waistband  of  her  habit, 
while  Mrs.  Spragg,  relapsing  from  temerity  to  meek 
ness,  hovered  about  her  with  obstructive  zeal. 

"If  you'd  only  just  let  go  of  my  skirt,  mother — I 
can  unhook  it  twice  as  quick  myself." 

Mrs.  Spragg  drew  back,  understanding  that  her 
presence  was  no  longer  wanted.  But  on  the  threshold 
she  paused,  as  if  overruled  by  a  stronger  influence,  and 
said,  with  a  last  look  at  her  daughter:  "You  didn't 
meet  anybody  when  you  were  out,  did  you,  Undie?" 

[461 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine's  brows  drew  together:  she  was  struggling 
with  her  long  patent-leather  boot. 

"Meet  anybody?  Do  you  mean  anybody  I  know?  I 
don't  know  anybody — I  never  shall,  if  father  can't  af 
ford  to  let  me  go  round  with  people!" 

The  boot  was  off  with  a  wrench,  and  she  flung  it 
violently  across  the  old-rose  carpet,  while  Mrs.  Spragg, 
turning  away  to  hide  a  look  of  inexpressible  relief, 
slipped  discreetly  from  the  room. 

The  day  wore  on.  Undine  had  meant  to  go  down  and 
tell  Mabel  Lipscomb  about  the  Fairford  dinner,  but 
its  aftertaste  was  flat  on  her  lips.  What  would  it  lead 
to?  Nothing,  as  far  as  she  could  see.  Ralph  Marvell  had 
not  even  asked  when  he  might  call;  and  she  was  ashamed 
to  confess  to  Mabel  that  he  had  not  driven  home  with 
her. 

Suddenly  she  decided  that  she  would  go  and  see  the 
pictures  of  which  Mrs.  Fairford  had  spoken.  Perhaps 
she  might  meet  some  of  the  people  she  had  seen  at 
dinner — from  their  talk  one  might  have  imagined  that 
they  spent  their  lives  in  picture-galleries. 

The  thought  reanimated  her,  and  she  put  on  her 
handsomest  furs,  and  a  hat  for  which  she  had  not  yet 
dared  present  the  bill  to  her  father.  It  was  the  fash 
ionable  hour  in  Fifth  Avenue,  but  Undine  knew  none 
of  the  ladies  who  wrere  bowing  to  each  other  from  inter 
locked  motors.  She  had  to  content  herself  with  the  gaze 

[47] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

of  admiration  which  she  left  in  her  wake  along  the  pave 
ment;  but  she  was  used  to  the  homage  of  the  streets 
and  her  vanity  craved  a  choicer  fare. 

When  she  reached  the  art  gallery  which  Mrs.  Fair- 
ford  had  named  she  found  it  even  more  crowded  than 
Fifth  Avenue;  and  some  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen 
wedged  before  the  pictures  had  the  "look"  which  sig 
nified  social  consecration.  As  Undine  made  her  way 
among  them,  she  was  aware  of  attracting  almost  as 
much  notice  as  in  the  street,  and  she  flung  herself  into 
rapt  attitudes  before  the  canvases,  scribbling  notes  in 
the  catalogue  in  imitation  of  a  tall  girl  in  sables,  while 
ripples  of  self-consciousness  played  up  and  down  her 
watchful  back. 

Presently  her  attention  was  drawn  to  a  lady  in  black 
who  was  examining  the  pictures  through  a  tortoise- 
shell  eye-glass  adorned  with  diamonds  and  hanging 
from  a  long  pearl  chain.  Undine  was  instantly  struck 
by  the  opportunities  which  this  toy  presented  for 
graceful  wrist  movements  and  supercilious  turns  of  the 
head.  It  seemed  suddenly  plebeian  and  promiscuous 
to  look  at  the  world  with  a  naked  eye,  and  all  her 
floating  desires  were  merged  in  the  wish  for  a  jewelled 
eye-glass  and  chain.  So  violent  was  this  wish  that, 
drawn  on  in  the  wake  of  the  owner  of  the  eye-glass, 
she  found  herself  inadvertently  bumping  against  a 
stout  tight-coated  young  man  whose  impact  knocked 
her  catalogue  from  her  hand. 

[481 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

As  the  young  man  picked  the  catalogue  up  and  held 
it  out  to  her  she  noticed  that  his  bulging  eyes  and 
queer  retreating  face  were  suffused  with  a  glow  of 
admiration.  He  was  so  unpleasant-looking  that  she 
would  have  resented  his  homage  had  not  his  odd 
physiognomy  called  up  some  vaguely  agreeable  associa-  / 
tion  of  ideas.  Where  had  she  seen  before  this  grotesque 
saurian  head,  with  eye-lids  as  thick  as  lips  and  lips  as 
thick  as  ear-lobes?  It  fled  before  her  down  a  perspective 
of  innumerable  newspaper  portraits,  all,  like  the  orig 
inal  before  her,  tightly  coated,  with  a  huge  pearl  trans- 

% 

fixing  a  silken  tie.  .  . 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  she  murmured,  all  gleams  and 
graces,  while  he  stood  hat  in  hand,  saying  sociably: 
"The  crowd's  simply  awful,  isn't  it?" 

At  the  same  moment  the  lady  of  the  eye-glass  drifted 
closer,  and  with  a  tap  of  her  wand,  and  a  careless 
"Peter,  look  at  this,"  swept  him  to  the  other  side  of 
the  gallery. 

Undine's  heart  was  beating  excitedly,  for  as  he 
turned  away  she  had  identified  him.  Peter  Van  Degen 
— who  could  he  be  but  young  Peter  Van  Degen,  the 
son  of  the  great  banker,  Thurber  Van  Degen,  the  hus 
band  of  Ralph  Marvell's  cousin,  the  hero  of  "Sunday 
Supplements,"  the  captor  of  Blue  Ribbons  at  Horse- 
Shows,  of  Gold  Cups  at  Motor  Races,  the  owner  of 
winning  race-horses  and  "crack"  sloops:  the  supreme 
exponent,  in  short,  of  those  crowning  arts  that  made 

[491 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

all  life  seem  stale  and  unprofitable  outside  the  magic 
ring  of  the  Society  Column? 

Undine  smiled  as  she  recalled  the  look  with  which 
his  pale  protruding  eyes  had  rested  on  her — it  almost 
consoled  her  for  his  wife's  indifference! 

When  she  reached  home  she  found  that  she  could  not 
remember  anything  about  the  pictures  she  had  seen.  .  . 

There  was  no  message  from  her  father,  and  a  reaction 
of  disgust  set  in.  Of  what  good  were  such  encounters 
if  they  were  to  have  no  sequel?  She  would  probably 
never  meet  Peter  Van  Degen  again — or,  if  she  did  run 
across  him  in  the  same  accidental  way,  she  knew  they 
could  not  continue  their  conversation  without  being 
"introduced."  What  was  the  use  of  being  beautiful 
and  attracting  attention  if  one  were  perpetually  doomed 
to  relapse  again  into  the  obscure  mass  of  the  Unin 
vited? 

Her  gloom  was  not  lightened  by  finding  Ralph  Mar- 
veil's  card  on  the  drawing-room  table.  She  thought  it 
unflattering  and  almost  impolite  of  him  to  call  with 
out  making  an  appointment:  it  seemed  to  show  that 
he  did  not  wish  to  continue  their  acquaintance.  But 
as  she  tossed  the  card  aside  her  mother  said:  "He  was 
real  sorry  not  to  see  you,  Undine — he  sat  here  nearly 
an  hour." 

Undine's  attention  was  roused.  "Sat  here — all  alone? 
Didn't  you  tell  him  I  was  out?" 

[50] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Yes — but  he  came  up  all  the  same.  He  asked  for 
me." 

" Asked  f or  you?" 

The  social  order  seemed  to  be  falling  in  ruins  at 
Undine's  feet.  A  visitor  who  asked  for  a  girl's  mother! 
— she  stared  at  Mrs.  Spragg  with  cold  incredulity. 
"What  makes  you  think  he  did?" 

"Why,  they  told  me  so.  I  telephoned  down  that  you 
were  out,  and  they  said  he'd  asked  for  me."  Mrs. 
Spragg  let  the  fact  speak  for  itself — it  was  too  much 
out  of  the  range  of  her  experience  to  admit  of  even  a 
hypothetical  explanation. 

Undine  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "It  was  a  mistake, 
of  course.  Why  on  earth  did  you  let  him  come  up?" 

"I  thought  maybe  he  had  a  message  for  you,  Undie." 

This  plea  struck  her  daughter  as  not  without  weight. 
"Well,  did  he?"  she  asked,  drawing  out  her  hat-pins 
and  tossing  down  her  hat  on  the  onyx  table. 

"Why,  no — he  just  conversed.  He  was  lovely  to  me, 
but  I  couldn't  make  out  what  he  was  after,"  Mrs. 
Spragg  was  obliged  to  own. 

Her  daughter  looked  at  her  with  a  kind  of  chill 
commiseration.  "You  never  can,"  she  murmured,  turn 
ing  away. 

She  stretched  herself  out  moodily  on  one  of  the  pink 
and  gold  sofas,  and  lay  there  brooding,  an  unread  novel 
on  her  knee.  Mrs.  Spragg  timidly  slipped  a  cushion 
under  her  daughter's  head,  and  then  dissembled  her- 

[51] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

self  behind  the  lace  window-curtains  and  sat  watching 
the  lights  spring  out  down  the  long  street  and  spread 
their  glittering  net  across  the  Park.  It  was  one  of  Mrs. 
Spragg's  chief  occupations  to  watch  the  nightly  light 
ing  of  New  York. 

Undine  lay  silent,  her  hands  clasped  behind  her  head. 
She  w^as  plunged  in  one  of  the  moods  of  bitter  retro 
spection  when  all  her  past  seemed  like  a  long  struggle 
for  something  she  could  not  have,  from  a  trip  to 
Europe  to  an  opera-box;  and  when  she  felt  sure  that, 
as  the  past  had  been,  so  the  future  would  be.  And  yet, 
as  she  had  often  told  her  parents,  all  she  sought  for 
was  improvement:  she  honestly  wanted  the  best. 

Her  first  struggle — after  she  had  ceased  to  scream 
for  candy,  or  sulk  for  a  new  toy — had  been  to  get  away 
from  Apex  in  summer.  Her  summers,  as  she  looked 
back  on  them,  seemed  to  typify  all  that  was  dreariest 
and  most  exasperating  in  her  life.  The  earliest  had  been 
spent  in  the  yellow  "frame"  cottage  where  she  had 
hung  on  the  fence,  kicking  her  toes  against  the  broken 
palings  and  exchanging  moist  chewing-gum  and  half- 
eaten  apples  with  Indiana  Frusk.  Later  on,  she  had  re 
turned  from  her  boarding-school  to  the  comparative 
gentility  of  summer  vacations  at  the  Mealey  House, 
whither  her  parents,  forsaking  their  squalid  suburb, 
had  moved  in  the  first  flush  of  their  rising  fortunes. 
The  tessellated  floors,  the  plush  parlours  and  organ- 
like  radiators  of  the  Mealey  House  had,  aside  from  their 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

intrinsic  elegance,  the  immense  advantage  of  lifting  the 
Spraggs  high  above  the  Frusks,  and  making  it  possible 
for  Undine,  when  she  met  Indiana  in  the  street  or  at 
school,  to  chill  her  advances  by  a  careless  allusion  to 
the  splendours  of  hotel  life.  But  even  in  such  a  setting, 
and  in  spite  of  the  social  superiority  it  implied,  the  long 
months  of  the  middle  western  summer,  fly-blown,  tor 
rid,  exhaling  stale  odours,  soon  became  as  insufferable 
as  they  had  been  in  the  little  yellow  house. 

At  school  Undine  met  other  girls  whose  parents  took 
them  to  the  Great  Lakes  for  August;  some  even  went 
to  California,  others — oh  bliss  ineffable! — went  "east." 

Pale  and  listless  under  the  stifling  boredom  of  the 
Mealey  House  routine,  Undine  secretly  sucked  lemons, 
nibbled  slate-pencils  and  drank  pints  of  bitter  coffee 
to  aggravate  her  look  of  ill-health;  and  when  she 
learned  that  even  Indiana  Frusk  was  to  go  on  a  month's 
visit  to  Buffalo  it  needed  no  artificial  aids  to  emphasize 
the  ravages  of  envy.  Her  parents,  alarmed  by  her  ap 
pearance,  were  at  last  convinced  of  the  necessity  of 
change,  and  timidly,  tentatively,  they  transferred 
themselves  for  a  month  to  a  staring  hotel  on  a  glaring 
lake. 

There  Undine  enjoyed  the  satisfaction  of  sending 
ironic  post-cards  to  Indiana,  and  discovering  that  she 
could  more  than  hold  her  own  against  the  youth  and 
beauty  of  the  other  visitors.  Then  she  made  the  ac 
quaintance  of  a  pretty  woman  from  Richmond,  whose 

[53] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

husband,  a  mining  engineer,  had  brought  her  west  with 
him  while  he  inspected  the  newly  developed  Eubaw 
mines;  and  the  southern  visitor's  dismay,  her  repug 
nances,  her  recoil  from  the  faces,  the  food,  the  amuse 
ments,  the  general  bareness  and  stridency  of  the  scene, 
were  a  terrible  initiation  to  Undine.  There  was  some 
thing  still  better  beyond,  then — more  luxurious,  more 
exciting,  more  worthy  of  her!  She  once  said  to  herself, 
afterward,  that  it  was  always  her  fate  to  find  out  just 
too  late  about  the  "something  beyond."  But  in  this 
case  it  was  not  too  late — and  obstinately,  inflexibly, 
she  set  herself  to  the  task  of  forcing  her  parents  to 
take  her  "east"  the  next  summer. 

Yielding  to  the  inevitable,  they  suffered  themselves 
to  be  impelled  to  a  Virginia  "resort,"  where  Undine 
had  her  first  glimpse  of  more  romantic  possibilities — 
leafy  moonlight  rides  and  drives,  picnics  in  mountain 
glades,  and  an  atmosphere  of  Christmas-chromo  sen 
timentality  that  tempered  her  hard  edges  a  little,  and 
gave  her  glimpses  of  a  more  delicate  kind  of  pleasure. 
But  here  again  everything  was  spoiled  by  a  peep 
through  another  door.  Undine,  after  a  first  mustering 
of  the  other  girls  in  the  hotel,  had,  as  usual,  found 
herself  easily  first — till  the  arrival,  from  Washington, 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wincher  and  their  daughter.  Undine 
was  much  handsomer  than  Miss  Wincher,  but  she  saw 
at  a  glance  that  she  did  not  know  how  to  use  her 
beauty  as  the  other  used  her  plainness.  She  was  exas- 

[54] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

perated,  too,  by  the  discovery  that  Miss  Wincher 
seemed  not  only  unconscious  of  any  possible  rivalry 
between  them,  but  actually  unaware  of  her  existence. 
Listless,  long-faced,  supercilious,  the  young  lady  from 
Washington  sat  apart  reading  novels  or  playing  soli 
taire  with  her  parents,  as  though  the  huge  hotel's  loud 
life  of  gossip  and  flirtation  were  invisible  and  inaudible 
to  her.  Undine  never  even  succeeded  in  catching  her 
eye:  she  always  lowered  it  to  her  book  when  the  Apex 
beauty  trailed  or  rattled  past  her  secluded  corner.  But 
one  day  an  acquaintance  of  the  Winchers'  turned  up — 
a  lady  from  Boston,  who  had  come  to  Virginia  on  a 
botanizing  tour;  and  from  scraps  of  Miss  Wincher 's 
conversation  with  the  newcomer,  Undine,  straining  her 
ears  behind  a  column  of  the  long  veranda,  obtained  a 
new  glimpse  into  the  unimagined. 

The  Winchers,  it  appeared,  found  themselves  at  Pot 
ash  Springs  merely  because  a  severe  illness  of  Mrs. 
Wincher's  had  made  it  impossible,  at  the  last  moment, 
to  move  her  farther  from  Washington.  They  had  let 
their  house  on  the  North  Shore,  and  as  soon  as  they 
could  leave  "this  dreadful  hole"  were  going  to  Europe 
for  the  autumn.  Miss  Wincher  simply  didn't  know  how 
she  got  through  the  days;  though  no  doubt  it  was  as 
good  as  a  rest-cure  after  the  rush  of  the  winter.  Of 
course  they  would  have  preferred  to  hire  a  house,  but 
the  "hole,"  if  one  could  believe  it,  didn't  offer  one;  so 
they  had  simply  shut  themselves  off  as  best  they  could 

[551 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

from  the  "hotel  crew" — had  her  friend,  Miss  Wincher 
parenthetically  asked,  happened  to  notice  the  Sunday 
young  men?  They  were  queerer  even  than  the  "belles" 
they  came  for — and  had  escaped  the  promiscuity  of 
the  dinner-hour  by  turning  one  of  their  rooms  into  a 
dining-room,  and  picnicking  there — with  the  Persim 
mon  House  standards,  one  couldn't  describe  it  in  any 
other  way !  But  luckily  the  awful  place  was  doing  mam 
ma  good,  and  now  they  had  nearly  served  their  term.  .  . 

Undine  turned  sick  as  she  listened.  Only  the  evening 
before  she  had  gone  on  a  "buggy-ride"  with  a  young 
gentleman  from  Deposit — a  dentist's  assistant — and 
had  let  him  kiss  her,  and  given  him  the  flower  from  her 
hair.  She  loathed  the  thought  of  him  now:  she  loathed 
all  the  people  about  her,  and  most  of  all  the  disdain 
ful  Miss  Wincher.  It  enraged  her  to  think  that  the 
Winchers  classed  her  with  the  "hotel  crew" — with  the 
"belles"  who  awaited  their  Sunday  young  men.  The 
place  was  forever  blighted  for  her,  and  the  next  week 
she  dragged  her  amazed  but  thankful  parents  back  to 
Apex. 

But  Miss  Wincher's  depreciatory  talk  had  opened 
ampler  vistas,  and' the  pioneer  blood  in  Undine  would 
not  let  her  rest.  She  had  heard  the  call  of  the  Atlantic 
seaboard,  and  the  next  summer  found  the  Spraggs  at 
Skog  Harbour,  Maine.  Even  now  Undine  felt  a  shiver 
of  boredom  as  she  recalled  it.  That  summer  had  been 
the  worst  of  all.  The  bare  wind-beaten  inn,  all  shingles 

[56] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

without  and  blueberry  pie  within,  was  "exclusive," 
parochial,  Bostonian;  and  the  Spraggs  wore  through 
.  the  interminable  weeks  in  blank  unmitigated  isolation. 
The  incomprehensible  part  of  it  was  that  every  other 
woman  in  the  hotel  was  plain,  dowdy  or  elderly — and 
most  of  them  all  three.  If  there  had  been  any  competi 
tion  on  ordinary  lines  Undine  would  have  won,  as  Van 
Degen  said,  "hands  down/'  But  there  wasn't — the 
other  "guests"  simply  formed  a  cold  impenetrable 
group  who  walked,  boated,  played  golf,  and  discussed 
Christian  Science  and  the  Subliminal,  unaware  of  the 
tremulous  organism  drifting  helplessly  against  their 
rock-bound  circle. 

It  was  on  the  day  the  Spraggs  left  Skog  Harbour 
that  Undine  vowed  to  herself  with  set  lips:  "I'll  never 
try  anything  again  till  I  try  New  York."  Now  she  had 
gained  her  point  and  tried  New  York,  and  so  far,  it 
seemed,  with  no  better  success.  From  small  things  to 
great,  everything  went  against  her.  In  such  hours  of 
self-searching  she  was  ready  enough  to  acknowledge 
her  own  mistakes,  but  they  exasperated  her  less  than 
the  blunders  of  her  parents.  She  was  sure,  for  instance, 
that  she  was  on  what  Mrs.  Heeny  called  "the  right 
tack"  at  last:  yet  just  at  the  moment  when  her  luck 
seemed  about  to  turn  she  was  to  be  thwarted  by  her 
father's  stupid  obstinacy  about  the  opera-box.  .  . 

She  lay  brooding  over  these  things  till  long  after 
Mrs.  Spragg  had  gone  away  to  dress  for  dinner,  and  it 

[57] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

was  nearly  eight  o'clock  when  she  heard  her  father's 
dragging  tread  in  the  hall. 

She  kept  her  eyes  fixed  on  her  book  while  he  entered 
the  room  and  moved  about  behind  her,  laying  aside  his 
hat  and  overcoat;  then  his  steps  came  close  and  a  small 
parcel  dropped  on  the  pages  of  her  book. 

"Oh,  father!"  She  sprang  up,  all  alight,  the  novel 
on  the  floor,  her  fingers  twitching  for  the  tickets.  But 
a  substantial  packet  emerged,  like  nothing  she  had 
ever  seen.  She  looked  at  it,  hoping,  fearing — she  beamed 
blissful  interrogation  on  her  father  while  his  sallow 
smile  continued  to  tantalize  her.  Then  she  closed  on 
him  with  a  rush,  smothering  his  words  against  her  hair. 

"It's  for  more  than  one  night — why,  it's  for  every 
other  Friday!  Oh,  you  darling,  you  darling!"  she  ex 
ulted. 

Mr.  Spragg,  through  the  glittering  meshes,  feigned 
dismay.  "That  so?  They  must  have  given  me  the 
wrong — !"  Then,  convicted  by  her  radiant  eyes  as  she 
swung  round  on  him:  "I  knew  you  only  wanted  it  once 
for  yourself,  Undine;  but  I  thought  maybe,  off  nights, 
you'd  like  to  send  it  to  your  friends." 

Mrs.  Spragg,  who  from  her  doorway  had  assisted 
with  moist  eyes  at  this  closing  pleasantry,  came  for 
ward  as  Undine  hurried  away  to  dress. 

"Abner — can  you  really  manage  it  all  right?" 

He  answered  her  with  one  of  his  awkward  brief 
caresses.  "Don't  you  fret  about  that,  Leota.  I'm  bound 

[581 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

to  have  her  go  round  with  these  people  she  knows.  I 
want  her  to  be  with  them  all  she  can." 

A  pause  fell  between  them,  while  Mrs.  Spragg  looked 
anxiously  into  his  fagged  eyes. 

"You  seen  Elmer  again?" 

"No.  Once  was  enough,"  he  returned,  with  a  scowl 
like  Undine's. 

"Why — you  said  he  couldn't  come  after  her,  Abner!" 

"No  more  he  can.  But  what  if  she  was  to  get  ner 
vous  and  lonesome,  and  want  to  go  after  him?" 

Mrs.  Spragg  shuddered  away  from  the  suggestion. 
"How'd  he  look?  Just  the  same?"  she  whispered. 

"No.  Spruced  up.  That's  what  scared  me." 

It  scared  her  too,  to  the  point  of  blanching  her  ha 
bitually  lifeless  cheek.  She  continued  to  scrutinize  her 
husband  broodingly.  "  You  look  fairly  sick,  Abner.  You 
better  let  me  get  you  some  of  those  stomach  drops 
right  off,"  she  proposed. 

But  he  parried  this  with  his  unfailing  humour.  "I 
guess  I'm  too  sick  to  risk  that."  He  passed  his  hand 
through  her  arm  with  the  conjugal  gesture  familiar  to 
Apex  City.  "Come  along  down  to  dinner,  mother — I 
guess  Undine  won't  mind  if  I  don't  rig  up  to-night." 


[59] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


SHE  had  looked  down  at  them,  enviously,  from  the 
balcony — she  had  looked  up  at  them,  reveren 
tially,  from  the  stalls;  but  now  at  last  she  was  on  a 
line  with  them,  among  them,  she  was  part  of  the  sacred 
semicircle  whose  privilege  it  is,  between  the  acts,  to  make 
the  mere  public  forget  that  the  curtain  has  fallen. 

As  she  swept  to  the  left-hand  seat  of  their  crimson 
niche,  waving  Mabel  Lipscomb  to  the  opposite  corner 
with  a  gesture  learned  during  her  apprenticeship  in  the 
stalls,  Undine  felt  that  quickening  of  the  faculties  that 
comes  in  the  high  moments  of  life.  Her  consciousness 
seemed  to  take  in  at  once  the  whole  bright  curve  of  the 
auditorium,  from  the  unbroken  lines  of  spectators  be 
low  her  to  the  culminating  blaze  of  the  central  chan 
delier;  and  she  herself  was  the  core  of  that  vast  illumina 
tion,  the  sentient  throbbing  surface  which  gathered  all 
the  shafts  of  light  into  a  centre. 

It  was  almost  a  relief  when,  a  moment  later,  the 
lights  sank,  the  curtain  rose,  and  the  focus  of  illumina 
tion  was  shifted.  The  music,  the  scenery,  and  the 
movement  on  the  stage,  were  like  a  rich  mist  temper 
ing  the  radiance  that  shot  on  her  from  every  side,  and 
giving  her  time  to  subside,  draw  breath,  adjust  herself 
to  this  new  clear  medium  which  made  her  feel  so  oddly 
brittle  and  transparent. 

[60] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

When  the  curtain  fell  on  the  first  act  she  began  to 
be  aware  of  a  subtle  change  in  the  house.  In  all  the 
boxes  cross-currents  of  movement  had  set  in:  groups 
were  coalescing  and  breaking  up,  fans  waving  and  heads 
twinkling,  black  coats  emerging  among  white  shoul 
ders,  late  comers  dropping  their  furs  and  laces  in  the 
red  penumbra  of  the  background.  Undine,  for  the  mo 
ment  unconscious  of  herself,  swept  the  house  with  her 
opera-glass,  searching  for  familiar  faces.  Some  she  knew 
without  being  able  to  name  them — fixed  figure-heads 
of  the  social  prow — others  she  recognized  from  their 
portraits  in  the  papers;  but  of  the  few  from  whom  she 
could  herself  claim  recognition  not  one  was  visible,  and 
as  she  pursued  her  investigations  the  whole  scene  grew 
blank  and  featureless. 

Almost  all  the  boxes  were  full  now,  but  one,  just  op 
posite,  tantalized  her  by  its  continued  emptiness.  How 
queer  to  have  an  opera-box  and  not  use  it!  What  on 
earth  could  the  people  be  doing — what  rarer  delight 
could  they  be  tasting?  Undine  remembered  that  the 
numbers  of  the  boxes  and  the  names  of  their  owners 
were  given  on  the  back  of  the  programme,  and  after  a 
rapid  computation  she  turned  to  consult  the  list.  Mon 
days  and  Fridays,  Mrs.  Peter  Van  Degen.  That  was  it: 
the  box  was  empty  because  Mrs.  Van  Degen  was  dining 
alone  with  Ralph  Mar  veil!  "Peter  will  be  at  one  of  his 
club  dinners"  Undine  had  a  sharp  vision  of  the  Van 
Degen  dining-room — she  pictured  it  as  oak-carved  and 

[611 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

sumptuous  with  gilding — with  a  small  table  in  the  cen 
tre,  and  rosy  lights  and  flowers,  and  Ralph  Marvell, 
across  the  hot-house  grapes  and  champagne,  leaning  to 
take  a  light  from  his  hostess's  cigarette.  Undine  had 
seen  such  scenes  on  the  stage,  she  had  come  upon 
them  in  the  glowing  pages  of  fiction,  and  it  seemed  to 
her  that  every  detail  was  before  her  now,  from  the 
glitter  of  jewels  on  Mrs.  Van  Degen's  bare  shoulders 
to  the  way  young  Marvell  stroked  his  slight  blond 
moustache  while  he  smiled  and  listened. 

Undine  blushed  with  anger  at  her  own  simplicity  in 
fancying  that  he  had  been  "taken"  by  her — that  she 
could  ever  really  count  among  these  happy  self-ab 
sorbed  people!  They  all  had  their  friends,  their  ties, 
their  delightful  crowding  obligations:  why  should  they 
make  room  for  an  intruder  in  a  circle  so  packed  with 
the  initiated? 

As  her  imagination  developed  the  details  of  the 
scene  in  the  Van  Degen  dining-room  it  became  clear 
to  her  that  fashionable  society  was  horribly  immoral 
and  that  she  could  never  really  be  happy  in  such  a  poi 
soned  atmosphere.  She  remembered  that  an  eminent 
divine  was  preaching  a  series  of  sermons  against  Social 
Corruption,  and  she  determined  to  go  and  hear  him  on 
the  following  Sunday. 

This  train  of  thought  was  interrupted  by  the  feeling 
that  she  was  being  intently  observed  from  the  neigh 
bouring  box.  She  turned  around  with  a  feint  of  speak- 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

ing  to  Mrs.  Lipscomb,  and  met  the  bulging  stare  of 
Peter  Van  Degen.  He  was  standing  behind  the  lady 
of  the  eye-glass,  who  had  replaced  her  tortoise-shell 
implement  by  one  of  closely-set  brilliants,  which,  at 
a  word  from  her  companion,  she  critically  bent  on 
Undine. 

"No — I  don't  remember,"  she  said;  and  the  girl  red 
dened,  divining  herself  unidentified  after  this  protracted 
scrutiny. 

But  there  was  no  doubt  as  to  young  Van  Degen's 
remembering  her.  She  was  even  conscious  that  he  was 
trying  to  provoke  in  her  some  reciprocal  sign  of  recog 
nition;  and  the  attempt  drove  her  to  the  haughty  study 
of  her  programme. 

"Why,  there's  Mr.  Popple  over  there!"  exclaimed 
Mabel  Lipscomb,  making  large  signs  across  the  house 
with  fan  and  play-bill. 

Undine  had  already  become  aware  that  Mabel, 
planted,  blond  and  brimming,  too  near  the  edge  of 
the  box,  was  somehow  out  of  scale  and  out  of  draw 
ing;  and  the  freedom  of  her  demonstrations  increased 
the  effect  of  disproportion.  No  one  else  was  wagging 
and  waving  in  that  way:  a  gestureless  mute  telegraphy 
seemed  to  pass  between  the  other  boxes.  Still,  Undine 
could  not  help  following  Mrs.  Lipscomb's  glance,  and 
there  in  fact  was  Claud  Popple,  taller  and  more  domi 
nant  than  ever,  and  bending  easily  over  what  she  felt 
must  be  the  back  of  a  brilliant  woman. 

[631 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

He  replied  by  a  discreet  salute  to  Mrs.  Lipscomb's 
intemperate  motions,  and  Undine  saw  the  brilliant 
woman's  opera-glass  turn  in  their  direction,  and  said 
to  herself  that  in  a  moment  Mr.  Popple  would  be 
"round."  But  the  entr'acte  wore  on,  and  no  one  turned 
the  handle  of  their  door,  or  disturbed  the  peaceful  som 
nolence  of  Harry  Lipscomb,  who,  not  being  (as  he  put 
it)  "onto"  grand  opera,  had  abandoned  the  struggle 
and  withdrawn  to  the  seclusion  of  the  inner  box.  Un 
dine  jealously  watched  Mr.  Popple's  progress  from  box 
to  box,  from  brilliant  woman  to  brilliant  woman;  but 
just  as  it  seemed  about  to  carry  him  to  their  door  he 
reappeared  at  his  original  post  across  the  house. 

"Undie,  do  look — there's  Mr.  Marvell!"  Mabel  began 
again,  with  another  conspicuous  outbreak  of  signalling; 
and  this  time  Undine  flushed  to  the  nape  as  Mrs.  Peter 
Van  Degen  appeared  in  the  opposite  box  with  Ralph 
Marvell  behind  her.  The  two  seemed  to  be  alone  in  the 
box — as  they  had  doubtless  been  alone  all  the  evening ! 
— and  Undine  furtively  turned  to  see  if  Mr.  Van  Degen 
shared  her  disapproval.  But  Mr.  Van  Degen  had  dis 
appeared,  and  Undine,  leaning  forward,  nervously 
touched  Mabel's  arm. 

"What's  the  matter,  Undine?  Don't  you  see  Mr. 
Marvell  over  there?  Is  that  his  sister  he's  with?" 

"No. — I  wouldn't  beckon  like  that,"  Undine  whis 
pered  between  her  teeth. 

"Why  not?  Don't  you  want  himtoknowyou'rehere?  " 
[641 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Yes — but  the  other  people  are  not  beckoning." 

Mabel  looked  about  unabashed.  "Perhaps  they've 
all  found  each  other.  Shall  I  send  Harry  over  to  tell 
him?"  she  shouted  above  the  blare  of  the  wind  instru 
ments. 

"No!"  gasped  Undine  as  the  curtain  rose. 

She  was  no  longer  capable  of  following  the  action 
on  the  stage.  Two  presences  possessed  her  imagination: 
that  of  Ralph  Marvell,  small,  unattainable,  remote, 
and  that  of  Mabel  Lipscomb,  near-by,  immense  and 
irrepressible. 

It  had  become  clear  to  Undine  that  Mabel  Lipscomb 
was  ridiculous.  That  was  the  reason  why  Popple  did 
not  come  to  the  box.  No  one  would  care  to  be  seen 
talking  to  her  while  Mabel  was  at  her  side:  Mabel, 
monumental  and  moulded  while  the  fashionable  were 
flexible  and  diaphanous,  Mabel  strident  and  explicit 
while  they  were  subdued  and  allusive.  At  the  Stento 
rian  she  was  the  centre  of  her  group — here  she  revealed 
herself  as  unknown  and  unknowing.  Why,  she  didn't 
even  know  that  Mrs.  Peter  Van  Degen  was  not  Ralph 
Marvell's  sister!  And  she  had  a  way  of  trumpeting  out 
her  ignorances  that  jarred  on  Undine's  subtler  methods. 
It  was  precisely  at  this  point  that  there  dawned  on 
Undine  what  was  to  be  one  of  the  guiding  principles 
of  her  career:  "It's  better  to  watch  than  to  ask  questions." 

The  curtain  fell  again,  and  Undine's  eyes  flew  back 
to  the  Van  Degen  box.  Several  men  were  entering  it 

[65] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

together,  and  a  moment  later  she  saw  Ralph  Marvell 
rise  from  his  seat  and  pass  out.  Half-unconsciously  she 
placed  herself  in  such  a  way  as  to  have  an  eye  on  the 
door  of  the  box.  But  its  handle  remained  unturned, 
and  Harry  Lipscomb,  leaning  back  on  the  sofa,  his 
head  against  the  opera  cloaks,  continued  to  breathe 
stertorously  through  his  open  mouth  and  stretched  his 
legs  a  little  farther  across  the  threshold.  .  . 

The  entr'acte  was  nearly  over  when  the  door  opened 
and  two  gentlemen  stumbled  over  Mr.  Lipscomb's 
legs.  The  foremost  was  Claud  Walsingham  Popple; 
and  above  his  shoulder  shone  the  batrachian  counte 
nance  of  Peter  Van  Degen.  A  brief  murmur  from  Mr. 
Popple  made  his  companion  known  to  the  two  ladies, 
and  Mr.  Van  Degen  promptly  seated  himself  behind 
Undine,  relegating  the  painter  to  Mrs.  Lipscomb's 
elbow. 

"Queer  go — I  happened  to  see  your  friend  there 
waving  to  old  Popp  across  the  house.  So  I  bolted  over 
and  collared  him:  told  him  he'd  got  to  introduce  me 
before  he  was  a  minute  older.  I  tried  to  find  out  who 
you  were  the  other  day  at  the  Motor  Show — no,  where 
was  it?  Oh,  those  pictures  at  Goldmark's.  What  d'you 
think  of  'em,  by  the  way?  You  ought  to  be  painted 
yourself — no,  I  mean  it,  you  know — you  ought  to  get 
old  Popp  to  do  you.  He'd  do  your  hair  ripplingly.  You 
must  let  me  come  and  talk  to  you  about  it.  .  .  About 
the  picture  or  your  hair?  Well,  your  hair  if  you  don't 

[66] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

mind.  Where'd  you  say  you  were  staying?  Oh,  you 
live  here,  do  you?  I  say,  that's  first  rate!" 

Undine  sat  well  forward,  curving  toward  him  a  little, 
as  she  had  seen  the  other  women  do,  but  holding  back 
sufficiently  to  let  it  be  visible  to  the  house  that  she 
was  conversing  with  no  less  a  person  than  Mr.  Peter 
Van  Degen.  Mr.  Popple's  talk  was  certainly  more  brill 
iant  and  purposeful,  and  she  saw  him  cast  longing 
glances  at  her  from  behind  Mrs.  Lipscomb's  shoulder; 
but  she  remembered  how  lightly  he  had  been  treated 
at  the  Fairford  dinner,  and  she  wanted — oh,  how  she 
wanted! — to  have  Ralph  Marvell  see  her  talking  to 
Van  Degen. 

She  poured  out  her  heart  to 'him,  improvising  an 
opinion  on  the  pictures  and  an  opinion  on  the  music, 
falling  in  gaily  with  his  suggestion  of  a  jolly  little  din 
ner  some  night  soon,  at  the  Cafe  Martin,  and  strength 
ening  her  position,  as  she  thought,  by  an  easy  allusion 
to  her  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Van  Degen.  But  at  the 
word  her  companion's  eye  clouded,  and  a  shade  of  con 
straint  dimmed  his  enterprising  smile. 

"My  wife — ?  Oh,  she  doesn't  go  to  restaurants — she 
moves  on  too  high  a  plane.  But  we'll  get  old  Popp,  and 

Mrs.  ,  Mrs.  ,  what'd  you  say  your  fat 

friend's  name  was?  Just  a  select  little  crowd  of  four — 
and  some  kind  of  a  cheerful  show  afterward.  .  .  Jove ! 
There's  the  curtain,  and  I  must  skip." 

As  the  door  closed  on  him  Undine's  cheeks  burned 
[67] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

with  resentment.  If  Mrs.  Van  Degen  didn't  go  to  res 
taurants,  why  had  he  supposed  that  she  would?  and 
to  have  to  drag  Mabel  in  her  wake!  The  leaden  sense 
of  failure  overcame  her  again.  Here  was  the  evening 
nearly  over,  and  what  had  it  led  to?  Looking  up  from 
the  stalls,  she  had  fancied  that  to  sit  in  a  box  was 
to  be  in  society — now  she  saw  it  might  but  empha 
size  one's  exclusion.  And  she  was  burdened  with  the 
box  for  the  rest  of  the  season!  It  was  really  stupid  of 
her  father  to  have  exceeded  his  instructions:  why  had 
he  not  done  as  she  told  him?  .  .  .  Undine  felt  helpless 
and  tired  .  .  .  hateful  memories  of  Apex  crowded  back 
on  her.  Was  it  going  to  be  as  dreary  here  as  there? 

She  felt  Lipscomb's  loud  whisper  in  her  back:  "Say, 
you  girls,  I  guess  I'll  cut  this  and  come  back  for  you 
when  the  show  busts  up."  They  heard  him  shuffle  out 
of  the  box,  and  Mabel  settled  back  to  undisturbed  en 
joyment  of  the  stage. 

When  the  last  entr'acte  began  Undine  stood  up,  re 
solved  to  stay  no  longer.  Mabel,  lost  in  the  study  of 
the  audience,  had  not  noticed  her  movement,  and  as  she 
passed  alone  into  the  back  of  the  box  the  door  opened 
and  Ralph  Mar  veil  came  in. 

Undine  stood  with  one  arm  listlessly  raised  to  de 
tach  her  cloak  from  the  wall.  Her  attitude  showed  the 
long  slimness  of  her  figure  and  the  fresh  curve  of  the 
throat  below  her  bent-back  head.  Her  face  was  paler 
and  softer  than  usual,  and  the  eyes  she  rested  on  Mar- 

[681 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

veil's  face  looked  deep  and  starry  under  their  fixed 
brows. 

"Oh — you're  not  going?"  he  exclaimed. 

"I  thought  you  weren't  coming,"  she  answered  sim- 

piy. 

"I  waited  till  now  on  purpose  to  dodge  your  other 
visitors." 

She  laughed  with  pleasure.  "Oh,  we  hadn't  so  many!" 

Some  intuition  had  already  told  her  that  frankness 
was  the  tone  to  take  with  him.  They  sat  down  together 
on  the  red  damask  sofa,  against  the  hanging  cloaks. 
As  Undine  leaned  back  her  hair  caught  in  the  spangles 
of  the  wrap  behind  her,  and  she  had  to  sit  motionless 
while  the  young  man  freed  the  captive  mesh.  Then 
they  settled  themselves  again,  laughing  a  little  at  the 
incident. 

A  glance  had  made  the  situation  clear  to  Mrs.  Lips- 
comb,  and  they  saw  her  return  to  her  rapt  inspection 
of  the  boxes.  In  their  mirror-hung  recess  the  light  was 
subdued  to  a  rosy  dimness  and  the  hum  of  the  au 
dience  came  to  them  through  half-drawn  silken  cur 
tains.  Undine  noticed  the  delicacy  and  finish  of  her 
companion's  features  as  his  head  detached  itself  against 
the  red  silk  walls.  The  hand  with  which  he  stroked  his 
small  moustache  was  finely-finished  too,  but  sinewy 
and  not  effeminate.  She  had  always  associated  finish 
and  refinement  entirely  with  her  own  sex,  but  she 
began  to  think  they  might  be  even  more  agreeable  in 

[691 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

a  man.  Marvell's  eyes  were  grey,  like  her  own,  with 
chestnut  eyebrows  and  darker  lashes;  and  his  skin  was 
as  clear  as  a  woman's,  but  pleasantly  reddish,  like  his 
hands. 

As  he  sat  talking  in  a  low  tone,  questioning  her 
about  the  music,  asking  her  what  she  had  been  doing 
since  he  had  last  seen  her,  she  was  aware  that  he  looked 
at  her  less  than  usual,  and  she  also  glanced  away;  but 
when  she  turned  her  eyes  suddenly  they  always  met 
his  gaze. 

His  talk  remained  impersonal.  She  was  a  little  dis 
appointed  that  he  did  not  compliment  her  on  her  dress 
or  her  hair — Undine  was  accustomed  to  hearing  a  great 
deal  about  her  hair,  and  the  episode  of  the  spangles 
had  opened  the  way  to  a  graceful  allusion — but  the 
instinct  of  sex  told  her  that,  under  his  quiet  words,  he 
was  throbbing  with  the  sense  of  her  proximity.  And 
his  self-restraint  sobered  her,  made  her  refrain  from 
the  flashing  and  fidgeting  which  were  the  only  way  she 
knew  of  taking  part  in  the  immemorial  love-dance. 
She  talked  simply  and  frankly  of  herself,  of  her  parents, 
of  how  few  people  they  knew  in  New  York,  and  of 
how,  at  times,  she  was  almost  sorry  she  had  persuaded 
them  to  give  up  Apex. 

"You  see,  they  did  it  entirely  on  my  account;  they're 
awfully  lonesome  here;  and  I  don't  believe  I  shall  ever 
learn  New  York  ways  either,"  she  confessed,  turning 
on  him  the  eyes  of  youth  and  truthfulness.  "Of  course 

F701 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

I  know  a  few  people;  but  they're  not — not  the  way  I 
expected  New  York  people  to  be."  She  risked  what 
seemed  an  involuntary  glance  at  Mabel.  "I've  seen 
girls  here  to-night  that  I  just  long  to  know — they  look 
so  lovely  and  refined — but  I  don't  suppose  I  ever  shall. 
New  York's  not  very  friendly  to  strange  girls,  is  it? 
T  suppose  you've  got  so  many  of  your  own  already — 
and  they're  all  so  fascinating  you  don't  care!"  As  she 
spoke  she  let  her  eyes  rest  on  his,  half-laughing,  half- 
wistful,  and  then  dropped  her  lashes  while  the  pink 
stole  slowly  up  to  them. 

When  he  left  her  he  asked  if  he  might  hope  to  find 
her  at  home  the  next  day. 

The  night  was  fine,  and  Marvell,  having  put  his  cousin 
into  her  motor,  started  to  walk  home  to  Washington 
Square.  At  the  corner  he  was  joined  by  Mr.  Popple. 
"Hallo,  Ralph,  old  man — did  you  run  across  our 
auburn  beauty  of  the  Stentorian?  Who'd  have  thought 
old  Harry  Lipscomb'd  have  put  us  onto  anything  as 
good  as  that?  Peter  Van  Degen  was  fairly  taken  off  his 
feet — pulled  me  out  of  Mrs.  Monty  Thurber's  box  and 
dragged  me  'round  by  the  collar  to  introduce  him. 
Planning  a  dinner  at  Martin's  already.  Gad,  young 
Peter  must  have  what  he  wants  when  he  wants  it !  I 
put  in  a  word  for  you — told  him  you  and  I  ought  to 
be  let  in  on  the  ground  floor.  Funny  the  luck  some  girls 
have  about  getting  started.  I  believe  this  one'll  take 

[711 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

if  she  can  manage  to  shake  the  Lipscombs.  I  think  I'll 
ask  to  paint  her;  might  be  a  good  thing  for  the  spring 
show.  She'd  show  up  splendidly  as  a  pendant  to  my 
Mrs.  Van  Degen — Blonde  and  Brunette.  .  .  Night  and 
Morning.  .  .  Of  course  I  prefer  Mrs.  Van  Degen's  type 
— personally,  I  must  have  breeding — but  as  a  mere 
bit  of  flesh  and  blood  .  .  .  hallo,  ain't  you  coming  into 
the  club?" 

Marvell  was  not  coming  into  the  club,  and  he  drew 
a  long  breath  of  relief  as  his  companion  left  him. 

Was  it  possible  that  he  had  ever  thought  leniently 
of  the  egregious  Popple?  The  tone  of  social  omniscience 
which  he  had  once  found  so  comic  was  now  as  offen 
sive  to  him  as  a  coarse  physical  touch.  And  the  worst 
of  it  was  that  Popple,  with  the  slight  exaggeration 
of  a  caricature,  really  expressed  the  ideals  of  the  world 
he  frequented.  As  he  spoke  of  Miss  Spragg,  so  others 
at  any  rate  would  think  of  her:  almost  every  one  in 
Ralph's  set  would  agree  that  it  was  luck  for  a  girl  from 
Apex  to  be  started  by  Peter  Van  Degen  at  a  Cafe 
Martin  dinner.  .  . 

Ralph  Marvell,  mounting  his  grandfather's  door 
step,  looked  up  at  the  symmetrical  old  red  house-front, 
with  its  frugal  marble  ornament,  as  he  might  have 
looked  into  a  familiar  human  face. 

"They're  right, — after  all,  in  some  ways  they're 
right,"  he  murmured,  slipping  his  key  into  the  door. 

"They"  were  his  mother  and  old  Mr.  Urban  Dagonet, 
[72] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

both,  from  Ralph's  earliest  memories,  so  closely  iden 
tified  with  the  old  house  in  Washington  Square  that 
they  might  have  passed  for  its  inner  consciousness  as 
it  might  have  stood  for  their  outward  form;  and  the 
question  as  to  which  the  house  now  seemed  to  affirm 
their  intrinsic  Tightness  was  that  of  the  social  disin 
tegration  expressed  by  widely-different  architectural 
physiognomies  at  the  other  end  of  Fifth  Avenue. 

As  Ralph  pushed  the  bolts  behind  him,  and  passed 
into  the  hall,  with  its  dark  mahogany  doors  and  the 
quiet  "Dutch  interior"  effect  of  its  black  and  white 
marble  paving,  he  said  to  himself  that  what  Popple 
called  society  was  really  just  like  the  houses  it  lived 
in:  a  muddle  of  misapplied  ornament  over  a  thin  steel 
shell  of  utility.  The  steel  shell  was  built  up  in  Wall 
Street,  the  social  trimmings  were  hastily  added  in  Fifth 
Avenue;  and  the  union  between  them  was  as  mon 
strous  and  factitious,  as  unlike  the  gradual  homogene 
ous  growth  which  flowers  into  what  other  countries 
know  as  society,  as  that  between  the  Blois  gargoyles 
on  Peter  Van  Degen's  roof  and  the  skeleton  walls  sup 
porting  them. 

That  was  what  "they"  had  always  said;  what,  at 
least,  the  Dagonet  attitude,  the  Dagonet  view  of  life, 
the  very  lines  of  the  furniture  in  the  old  Dagonet  house 
expressed. 

Ralph  sometimes  called  his  mother  and  grandfather 
the  Aborigines,  and  likened  them  to  those  vanishing 

[73] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

denizens  of  the  American  continent  doomed  to  rapid 
extinction  with  the  advance  of  the  invading  race.  He 
was  fond  of  describing  Washington  Square  as  the 
"Reservation,"  and  of  prophesying  that  before  long 
its  inhabitants  would  be  exhibited  at  ethnological  shows, 
pathetically  engaged  in  the  exercise  of  their  primitive 
industries. 

Small,  cautious,  middle-class,  had  been  the  ideals  of 
aboriginal  New  York;  but  it  suddenly  struck  the  young 
man  that  they  were  singularly  coherent  and  respect 
able  as  contrasted  with  the  chaos  of  indiscriminate  ap 
petites  which  made  up  its  modern  tendencies.  He  too 
had  wanted  to  be  "modern,"  had  revolted,  half -hu 
morously,  against  the  restrictions  and  exclusions  of  the 
old  code;  and  it  must  have  been  by  one  of  the  ironic 
reversions  of  heredity  that,  at  this  precise  point,  he 
began  to  see  what  there  was  to  be  said  on  the  other 
side — his  side,  as  he  now  felt  it  to  be. 

VI 

T  TPSTAIRS,  in  his  brown  firelit  room,  he  threw 
\_J     himself  into  an  armchair,  and  remembered.  .  . 
Harvard  first — then  Oxford;  then  a  year  of  wander 
ing  and  rich  initiation.     Returning  to  New  York,  he 
had  read  law,  and  now  had  his  desk  in  the  office  of 
the  respectable  firm  in  whose  charge  the  Dagonet  estate 
had  mouldered  for  several  generations.  But  his  pro- 

[74] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

fession  was  the  least  real  thing  in  his  life.  The  realities 
lay  about  him  now:  the  books  jamming  his  old  college 
bookcases  and  overflowing  on  chairs  and  tables;  sketches 
too — he  could  do  charming  things,  if  only  he  had  known 
how  to  finish  them! — and,  on  the  writing-table  at  his 
elbow,  scattered  sheets  of  prose  and  verse;  charming 
things  also,  but,  like  the  sketches,  unfinished. 

Nothing  in  the  Dagonet  and  Marvell  tradition  was 
opposed  to  this  desultory  dabbling  with  life.  For  four 
or  five  generations  it  had  been  the  rule  of  both  houses 
that  a  young  fellow  should  go  to  Columbia  or  Harvard, 
read  law,  and  then  lapse  into  more  or  less  cultivated 
inaction.  The  only  essential  was  that  he  should  live 
"like  a  gentleman" — that  is,  with  a  tranquil  disdain 
for  mere  money-getting,  a  passive  openness  to  the  finer 
sensations,  one  or  two  fixed  principles  as  to  the  quality 
of  wine,  and  an  archaic  probity  that  had  not  yet  learned 
to  distinguish  between  private  and  "business"  honour. 

No  equipment  could  more  thoroughly  have  unfitted  • 
the  modern  youth  for  getting  on :  it  hardly  needed  the 
scribbled  pages  on  the  desk  to  complete  the  hopeless 
ness  of  Ralph  Marvell's  case.  He  had  accepted  the  fact 
with  a  humorous  fatalism.  Material  resources  were  lim 
ited  on  both  sides  of  the  house,  but  there  would  always 
be  enough  for  his  frugal  wants — enough  to  buy  books 
(not  "editions"),  and  pay  now  and  then  for  a  holiday 
dash  to  the  great  centres  of  art  and  ideas.  And  mean 
while  there  was  the  world  of  wonders  within  him.  As  a 

[75] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

boy  at  the  sea-side,  Ralph,  between  tides,  had  once 
come  on  a  cave — a  secret  inaccessible  place  with  glau 
cous  lights,  mysterious  murmurs,  and  a  single  shaft  of 
communication  with  the  sky.  He  had  kept  his  find 
from  the  other  boys,  not  churlishly,  for  he  was  always 
an  outspoken  lad,  but  because  he  felt  there  were  things 
about  the  cave  that  the  others,  good  fellows  as  they 
all  were,  couldn't  be  expected  to  understand,  and  that, 
anyhow,  it  would  never  be  quite  his  cave  again  after  he 
had  let  his  thick-set  freckled  cousins  play  smuggler  and 
pirate  in  it. 

And  so  with  his  inner  world.  Though  so  coloured  by 
outer  impressions,  it  wove  a  secret  curtain  about  him, 
and  he  came  and  went  in  it  with  the  same  joy  of  fur 
tive  possession.  One  day,  of  course,  some  one  would  dis 
cover  it  and  reign  there  with  him — no,  reign  over  it 
and  In'm.  Once  or  twice  already  a  light  foot  had  reached 
the  threshold.  His  cousin  Clare  Dagonet,  for  instance: 
there  had  been  a  summer  when  her  voice  had  sounded 
far  down  the  windings  .  .  .  but  he  had  run  over  to  Spain 
for  the  autumn,  and  when  he  came  back  she  was  en 
gaged  to  Peter  Van  Degen,  and  for  a  while  it  looked 
black  in  the  cave.  That  was  long  ago,  as  time  is  reck 
oned  under  thirty;  and  for  three  years  now  he  had 
felt  for  her  only  a  half-contemptuous  pity.  To  have 
stood  at  the  mouth  of  his  cave,  and  have  turned  from 
it  to  the  Van  Degen  lair ! 

Poor  Clare  repented,  indeed — she  wanted  it  clearly 
[76] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

understood — but  she  repented  in  the  Van  Degen  dia 
monds,  and  the  Van  Degen  motor  bore  her  broken 
heart  from  opera  to  ball.  She  had  been  subdued  to  what 
she  worked  in,  and  she  could  never  again  find  her 
way  to  the  enchanted  cave.  .  .  Ralph,  since  then,  had 
reached  the  point  of  deciding  that  he  would  never 
marry;  reached  it  not  suddenly  or  dramatically,  but 
with  such  sober  advisedness  as  is  urged  on  those  about 
to  take  the  opposite  step.  What  he  most  wanted,  now 
that  the  first  flutter  of  being  was  over,  was  to  learn 
and  to  do — to  know  what  the  great  people  had  thought, 
think  about  their  thinking,  and  then  launch  his  own 
boat:  write  some  good  verse  if  possible;  if  not,  then  V 
critical  prose.  A  dramatic  poem  lay  among  the  stuff  at 
his  elbow;  but  the  prose  critic  was  at  his  elbow  too, 
and  not  to  be  satisfied  about  the  poem;  and  poet  and 
critic  passed  the  nights  in  hot  if  unproductive  debate. 
On  the  whole,  it  seemed  likely  that  the  critic  would 
win  the  day,  and  the  essay  on  "The  Rhythmical 
Structures  of  Walt  Whitman"  take  shape  before  "The 
Banished  God."  Yet  if  the  light  in  the  cave  was  less 
supernaturally  blue,  the  chant  of  its  tides  less  laden 
with  unimaginable  music,  it  was  still  a  thronged  and 
echoing  place  when  Undine  Spragg  appeared  on  its 
threshold.  .  . 

His  mother  and  sister  of  course  wanted  him  to  marry. 
They  had  the  usual  theory  that  he  was  "made"  for 
conjugal  bliss:  women  always  thought  that  of  a  fellow 

[771 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

who  didn't  get  drunk  and  have  low  tastes.  Ralph  smiled 
at  the  idea  as  he  sat  crouched  among  his  secret  treas 
ures.  Marry — but  whom,  in  the  name  of  light  and 
freedom?  The  daughters  of  his  own  race  sold  them- 
selves  to  the  Invaders;  the  daughters  of  the  Invaders 
bought  their  husbands  as  they  bought  an  opera-box. 
It  ought  all  to  have  been  transacted  on  the  Stock  Ex 
change.  His  mother,  he  knew,  had  no  such  ambitions 
for  him:  she  would  have  liked  him  to  fancy  a  "nice 
girl"  like  Harriet  Ray.  Harriet  Ray  was  neither  vulgar 
nor  ambitious.  She  regarded  Washington  Square  as 
the  birthplace  of  Society,  knew  by  heart  all  the  cousin- 
ships  of  early  New  York,  hated  motor-cars,  could  not 
make  herself  understood  on  the  telephone,  and  was 
determined,  if  she  married,  never  to  receive  a  divorced 
woman.  As  Mrs.  Marvell  often  said,  such  girls  as  Har 
riet  were  growing  rare.  Ralph  was  not  sure  about  this. 
He  was  inclined  to  think  that,  certain  modifications 
allowed  for,  there  would  always  be  plenty  of  Harriet 
Rays  for  unworldly  mothers  to  commend  to  their  sons; 
and  he  had  no  desire  to  diminish  their  number  by  re 
moving  one  from  the  ranks  of  the  marriageable.  He 
had  no  desire  to  marry  at  all — that  had  been  the  whole 

truth  of  it  till  he  met  Undine  Spragg.  And  now ? 

He  lit  a  cigar,  and  began  to  recall  his  hour's  conversa 
tion  with  Mrs.  Spragg. 

Ralph  had  never  taken  his  mother's  social  faiths 
very   seriously.    Surveying   the   march   of   civilization 

[78] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

from  a  loftier  angle,  he  had  early  mingled  with  the 
Invaders,  and  curiously  observed  their  rites  and  cus- 
toms.  But  most  of  those  he  had  met  had  already  been 
modified  by  contact  with  the  indigenous:  they  spoke 
the  same  language  as  his,  though  on  their  lips  it  had 
often  so  different  a  meaning.  Ralph  had  never  seen 
them  actually  in  the  making,  before  they  had  acquired 
the  speech  of  the  conquered  race.  But  Mrs.  Spragg 
still  used  the  dialect  of  her  people,  and  before  the  end 
of  the  visit  Ralph  had  ceased  to  regret  that  her  daugh 
ter  was  out.  He  felt  obscurely  that  in  the  girl's  pres 
ence — frank  and  simple  as  he  thought  her — he  should 
have  learned  less  of  life  in  early  Apex. 

Mrs.  Spragg,  once  reconciled — or  at  least  resigned — 
to  the  mysterious  necessity  of  having  to  "entertain" 
a  friend  of  Undine's,  had  yielded  to  the  first  touch  on 
the  weak  springs  of  her  garrulity.  She  had  not  seen 
Mrs.  Heeny  for  two  days,  and  this  friendly  young  man 
with  the  gentle  manner  was  almost  as  easy  to  talk  to 
as  the  masseuse.  And  then  she  could  tell  him  things 
that  Mrs.  Heeny  already  knew,  and  Mrs.  Spragg  liked 
to  repeat  her  stories.  To  do  so  gave  her  almost  her  sole 
sense  of  permanence  among  the  shifting  scenes  of  life. 
So  that,  after  she  had  lengthily  deplored  the  untoward 
accident  of  Undine's  absence,  and  her  visitor,  with  a 
smile,  and  echoes  of  divers  et  ondoyant  in  his  brain,  had 
repeated  her  daughter's  name  after  her,  saying:  "It's 
a  wonderful  find — how  could  you  tell  it  would  be  such 

[791 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

a  fit?" — it  came  to  her  quite  easily  to  answer:  "Why, 
we  called  her  after  a  hair-waver  father  put  on  the 

market  the  week  she  was  born "  and  then  to  explain, 

as  he  remained  struck  and  silent:  "It's  from  undoolay, 
you  know,  the  French  for  crimping;  father  always 
thought  the  name  made  it  take.  He  was  quite  a  scholar, 
and  had  the  greatest  knack  for  finding  names.  I  re 
member  the  time  he  invented  his  Goliath  Glue  he  sat 
up  all  night  over  the'  Bible  to  get  the  name.  .  .  No, 
father  didn't  start  in  as  a  druggist,"  she  went  on,  ex 
panding  with  the  signs  of  Marvell's  interest;  "he  was 
educated  for  an  undertaker,  and  built  up  a  first-class 
business;  but  he  was  always  a  beautiful  speaker,  and 
after  a  while  he  sorter  drifted  into  the  ministry.  Of 
course  it  didn't  pay  him  anything  like  as  well,  so 
finally  he  opened  a  drug-store,  and  he  did  first-rate  at 
that  too,  though  his  heart  was  always  in  the  pulpit. 
But  after  he  made  such  a  success  with  his  hair-waver 
he  got  speculating  in  land  out  at  Apex,  and  somehow 
everything  went — though  Mr.  Spragg  did  all  he 
could ."  Mrs.  Spragg,  when  she  found  herself  em 
barked  on  a  long  sentence,  always  ballasted  it  by  ital 
icizing  the  last  word. 

Her  husband,  she  continued,  could  not,  at  the  time, 
do  much  for  his  father-in-law.  Mr.  Spragg  had  come 
to  Apex  as  a  poor  boy,  and  their  early  married  life  had 
been  a  protracted  struggle,  darkened  by  domestic  afflic 
tion.  Two  of  their  three  children  had  died  of  typhoid 

[80] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

in  the  epidemic  which  devastated  Apex  before  the  new 
water- works  were  built;  and  this  calamity,  by  causing 
Mr.  Spragg  to  resolve  that  thereafter  Apex  should 
drink  pure  water,  had  led  directly  to  the  founding  of 
his  fortunes. 

"He  had  taken  over  some  of  poor  father's  land  for 
a  bad  debt,  and  when  he  got  up  the  Pure  Water  move 
the  company  voted  to  buy  the  land  and  build  the  new 
reservoir  up  there:  and  after  that  we  began  to  be  better 
off,  and  it  did  seem  as  if  it  had  come  out  so  to  comfort 
us  some  about  the  children." 

Mr.  Spragg,  thereafter,  had  begun  to  be  a  power  in 
Apex,  and  fat  years  had  followed  on  the  lean.  Ralph 
Marvell  was  too  little  versed  in  affairs  to  read  between 
the  lines  of  Mrs.  Spragg's  untutored  narrative,  and  he 
understood  no  more  than  she  the  occult  connection 
between  Mr.  Spragg's  domestic  misfortunes  and  his 
business  triumph.  Mr.  Spragg  had  "helped  out"  his 
ruined  father-in-law,  and  had  vowed  on  his  children's 
graves  that  no  Apex  child  should  ever  again  drink 
poisoned  water — and  out  of  those  two  disinterested 
impulses,  by  some  impressive  law  of  compensation, 
material  prosperity  had  come.  What  Ralph  understood 
and  appreciated  was  Mrs.  Spragg's  unaffected  frankness 
in  talking  of  her  early  life.  Here  was  no  retrospective 
pretense  of  an  opulent  past,  such  as  the  other  Invaders 
were  given  to  parading  before  the  bland  but  undeceived 
subject  race.  The  Spraggs  had  been  "plain  people"  and 

[81] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

had  not  yet  learned  to  be  ashamed  of  it.  The  fact  drew 
them  much  closer  to  the  Dagonet  ideals  than  any  sham 
elegance  in  the  past  tense.  Ralph  felt  that  his  mother, 
who  shuddered  away  from  Mrs.  Harmon  B.  Driscoll, 
would  understand  and  esteem  Mrs.  Spragg. 

But  how  long  would  their  virgin  innocence  last? 
Popple's  vulgar  hands  were  on  it  already — Popple's 
and  the  unspeakable  Van  Degen's!  Once  they  and 
theirs  had  begun  the  process  of  initiating  Undine, 
there  was  no  knowing — or  rather  there  was  too  easy 
knowing — how  it  would  end !  It  was  incredible  that  she 
too  should  be  destined  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the  cheaply 
fashionable;  yet  were  not  her  very  freshness,  her  mal 
leability,  the  mark  of  her  fate?  She  was  still  at  the 
age  when  the  flexible  soul  offers  itself  to  the  first  grasp. 
That  the  grasp  should  chance  to  be  Van  Degen's — 
that  was  what  made  Ralph's  temples  buzz,  and  swept 
away  all  his  plans  for  his  own  future  like  a  beaver's 
dam  in  a  spring  flood.  To  save  her  from  Van  Degen 
and  Van  Degenism :  was  that  really  to  be  his  mission — 
the  "call"  for  which  his  life  had  obscurely  waited?  It 
was  not  in  the  least  what  he  had  meant  to  do  with  the 
fugitive  flash  of  consciousness  he  called  self;  but  all 
that  he  had  purposed  for  that  transitory  being  sank 
into  insignificance  under  the  pressure  of  Undine's  claims. 
Ralph  Marvell's  notion  of  women  had  been  formed 
on  the  experiences  common  to  good-looking  young 
men  of  his  kind.  Women  were  drawn  to  him  as  much 

[821 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

by  his  winning  appealing  quality,  by  the  sense  of  a 
youthful  warmth  behind  his  light  ironic  exterior,  as  by 
his  charms  of  face  and  mind.  Except  during  Clare  Dag- 
onet's  brief  reign  the  depths  in  him  had  not  been 
stirred;  but  in  taking  what  each  sentimental  episode 
had  to  give  he  had  preserved,  through  all  his  minor  ad 
ventures,  his  faith  in  the  great  adventure  to  come.  It 
was  this  faith  that  made  him  so  easy  a  victim  when 
love  had  at  last  appeared  clad  in  the  attributes  of  ro 
mance:  the  imaginative  man's  indestructible  dream  of 
a  rounded  passion. 

The  clearness  with  which  he  judged  the  girl  and 
himself  seemed  the  surest  proof  that  his  feeling  was 
more  than  a  surface  thrill.  He  was  not  blind  to  her 
crudity  and  her  limitations,  but  they  were  a  part  of 
her  grace  and  her  persuasion.  Diverse  et  ondoyante — so 
he  had  seen  her  from  the  first.  But  was  not  that  merely 
the  sign  of  a  quicker  response  to  the  world's  manifold 
appeal?  There  was  Harriet  Ray,  sealed  up  tight  in  the 
vacuum  of  inherited  opinion,  where  not  a  breath  of 
fresh  sensation  could  get  at  her :  there  could  be  no  call 
to  rescue  young  ladies  so  secured  from  the  perils  of 
reality!  Undine  had  no  such  traditional  safeguards — 
Ralph  guessed  Mrs.  Spragg's  opinions  to  be  as  fluid 
as  her  daughter's — and  the  girl's  very  sensitiveness  to 
new  impressions,  combined  with  her  obvious  lack  of 
any  sense  of  relative  values,  would  make  her  an  easy 
prey  to  the  powers  of  folly.  He  seemed  to  see  her — as 

[831 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

he  sat  there,  pressing  his  fists  into  his  temples — he 
seemed  to  see  her  like  a  lovely  rock-bound  Andromeda, 
with  the  devouring  monster  Society  careering  up  to 
make  a  mouthful  of  her;  and  himself  whirling  down 
on  his  winged  horse — just  Pegasus  turned  Rosinante 
for  the  nonce — to  cut  her  bonds,  snatch  her  up,  and 
whirl  her  back  into  the  blue.  . 


VII 

SOME  two  months  later  than  the  date  of  young 
Marvell's  midnight  vigil,  Mrs.  Heeny,  seated  on 
a  low  chair  at  Undine's  knee,  gave  the  girl's  left  hand 
an  approving  pat  as  she  laid  aside  her  lapful  of  pol 
ishers. 

"There!  I  guess  you  can  put  your  ring  on  again," 
she  said  with  a  laugh  of  jovial  significance;  and  Un 
dine,  echoing  the  laugh  in  a  murmur  of  complacency, 
slipped  on  the  fourth  finger  of  her  recovered  hand  a 
band  of  sapphires  in  an  intricate  setting. 

Mrs.  Heeny  took  up  the  hand  again.  "Them's  old 
stones,  Undine — they've  got  a  different  look,"  she  said, 
examining  the  ring  while  she  rubbed  her  cushioned 
palm  over  the  girl's  brilliant  finger-tips.  "And  the  set 
ting's  quaint — I  wouldn't  wonder  but  what  it  was  one 
of  old  Gran'ma  Dagonet's." 

Mrs.  Spragg,  hovering  near  in  fond  beatitude,  looked 
up  quickly. 

[841 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Why,  don't  you  s'pose  he  bought  it  for  her,  Mrs. 
Heeny?  It  came  in  a  Tiff'ny  box." 

The  manicure  laughed  again.  "Of  course  he's  had 
Tiff'ny  rub  it  up.  Ain't  you  ever  heard  of  ancestral 
jewels,  Mrs.  Spragg?  In  the  Eu-ropean  aristocracy 
they  never  go  out  and  buy  engagement  rings;  and  Un 
dine's  marrying  into  our  aristocracy." 

Mrs.  Spragg  looked  relieved.  "Oh,  I  thought  maybe 
they  were  trying  to  scrimp  on  the  ring — 

Mrs.  Heeny,  shrugging  away  this  explanation,  rose 
from  her  seat  and  rolled  back  her  shiny  black  sleeves. 

"Look  at  here,  Undine,  if  you  really  want  me  to  do 
your  hair  it's  time  we  got  to  work." 

The  girl  swung  about  in  her  seat  so  that  she  faced 
the  mirror  on  the  dressing-table.  Her  shoulders  shone 
through  transparencies  of  lace  and  muslin  which  slipped 
back  as  she  lifted  her  arms  to  draw  the  tortoise-shell 
pins  from  her  hair. 

"Of  course  you've  got  to  do  it — I  want  to  look  per 
fectly  lovely!" 

"Well — I  dunno's  my  hand's  in  nowadays,"  said 
Mrs.  Heeny  in  a  tone  that  belied  the  doubt  she  cast 
on  her  own  ability. 

"Oh,  you're  an  artist,  Mrs.  Heeny — and  I  just 
couldn't  have  had  that  French  maid  'round  to-night," 
sighed  Mrs.  Spragg,  sinking  into  a  chair  near  the  dress 
ing-table. 

Undine,  with  a  backward  toss  of  her  head,  scattered 
her  loose  locks  about  her.  As  they  spread  and  sparkled 

[851 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

under  Mrs.  Heeny's  touch,  Mrs.  Spragg  leaned  back, 
drinking  in  through  half-closed  lids  her  daughter's 
loveliness.  Some  new  quality  seemed  added  to  Undine's 
beauty :  it  had  a  milder  bloom,  a  kind  of  melting  grace, 
which  might  have  been  lent  to  it  by  the  moisture  in 
her  mother's  eyes. 

"So  you're  to  see  the  old  gentleman  for  the  first 
time  at  this  dinner?"  Mrs.  Heeny  pursued,  sweeping 
the  live  strands  up  into  a  loosely  woven  crown. 

"Yes.  I'm  frightened  to  death!"  Undine,  laughing 
confidently,  took  up  a  hand-glass  and  scrutinized  the 
small  brown  mole  above  the  curve  of  her  upper  lip. 

"I  guess  she'll  know  how  to  talk  to  him,"  Mrs. 
Spragg  averred  with  a  kind  of  quavering  triumph. 

"She'll  know  how  to  look  at  him,  anyhow,"  said  Mrs. 
Heeny;  and  Undine  smiled  at  her  own  image. 

"I  hope  he  won't  think  I'm  too  awful!" 

Mrs.  Heeny  laughed.  "Did  you  read  the  descrip 
tion  of  yourself  in  the  Radiator  this  morning?  I  wish't 
I'd  'a  had  time  to  cut  it  out.  I  guess  I'll  have  to  start 
a  separate  bag  for  your  clippings  soon." 

Undine  stretched  her  arms  luxuriously  above  her 
head  and  gazed  through  lowered  lids  at  the  foreshort 
ened  reflection  of  her  face. 

"Mercy!  Don't  jerk  about  like  that.  Am  I  to  put  in 
this  rose?— There— you  are  lovely!"  Mrs.  Heeny  sighed, 
as  the  pink  petals  sank  into  the  hair  above  the  girl's 
forehead. 

Undine  pushed  her  chair  back,  and  sat  supporting 
[80] 


THE   CUSTOM   OF  THE   COUNTRY 

her  chin  on  her  clasped  hands  while  she  studied  the  re 
sult  of  Mrs.  Heeny's  manipulations. 

"Yes — that's  the  way  Mrs.  Peter  Van  Degen's  flower 
was  put  in  the  other  night;  only  hers  was  a  camellia. 
— Do  you  think  I'd  look  better  with  a  camellia?" 

"I  guess  if  Mrs.  Van  Degen  looked  like  a  rose  she'd 
'a  worn  a  rose,"  Mrs.  Heeny  rejoined  poetically.  "Sit 
still  a  minute  longer,"  she  added.  "Your  hair's  so  heavy 
I'd  feel  easier  if  I  was  to  put  in  another  pin." 

Undine  remained  motionless,  and  the  manicure,  sud 
denly  laying  both  hands  on  the  girl's  shoulders,  and 
bending  over  to  peer  at  her  reflection,  said  playfully: 
"Ever  been  engaged  before,  Undine?" 

A  blush  rose  to  the  face  in  the  mirror,  spreading  from 
chin  to  brow,  and  running  rosily  over  the  white  shoul 
ders  from  which  their  covering  had  slipped  down. 

"My!  If  he  could  see  you  now!"  Mrs.  Heeny  jested. 

Mrs.  Spragg,  rising  noiselessly,  glided  across  the  room 
and  became  lost  in  a  minute  examination  of  the  dress 
laid  out  on  the  bed. 

With  a  supple  twist  Undine  slipped  from  Mrs.  Heeny's 
hold. 

"Engaged?  Mercy,  yes!  Didn't  you  know?  To  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  I  broke  it  off  because  I  wouldn't  live 
in  the  Tower." 

Mrs.  Spragg,  lifting  the  dress  cautiously  over  her 
arm,  advanced  with  a  reassured  smile. 

"I  s'pose  Undie'll  go  to  Europe  now,"  she  said  to 
Mrs.  Heeny. 

[871 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"I  guess  Undie  will!'9  the  young  lady  herself  de 
clared.  "We're  going  to  sail  right  afterward. — Here, 
mother,  do  be  careful  of  my  hair!"  She  ducked  grace 
fully  to  slip  into  the  lacy  fabric  which  her  mother  held 
above  her  head. 

As  she  rose  Venus-like  above  its  folds  there  was  a 
tap  on  the  door,  immediately  followed  by  its  tentative 
opening. 

"Mabel!"  Undine  muttered,  her  brows  lowering  like 
her  father's;  and  Mrs.  Spragg,  wheeling  about  to  screen 
her  daughter,  addressed  herself  protestingly  to  the  half- 
open  door. 

"Who's  there?  Oh,  that  you,  Mrs.  Lipscomb?  Well, 
I  don't  know  as  you  can — Undie  isn't  half  dressed 
yet " 

"Just  like  her — always  pushing  in!"  Undine  mur 
mured  as  she  slipped  her  arms  into  their  transpar 
ent  sleeves. 

"Oh,  that  don't  matter— I'll  help  dress  her!"  Mrs. 
Lipscomb's  large  blond  person  surged  across  the  thresh 
old.  "Seems  to  me  I  ought  to  lend  a  hand  to-night, 
considering  I  was  the  one  that  introduced  them!" 

Undine  forced  a  smile,  but  Mrs.  Spragg,  her  soft 
wrinkles  deepening  with  resentment,  muttered  to  Mrs. 
Heeny,  as  she  bent  down  to  shake  out  the  girl's  train: 
"I  guess  my  daughter's  only  got  to  show  herself— 

The  first  meeting  with  old  Mr.  Dagonet  was  less  formi 
dable  than  Undine  had  expected.  She  had  been  once  be- 

[881 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

fore  to  the  house  in  Washington  Square,  when,  with  her 
mother,  she  had  returned  Mrs.  MarvelFs  ceremonial 
visit;  but  on  that  occasion  Ralph's  grandfather  had 
not  been  present.  All  the  rites  connected  with  her  en 
gagement  were  new  and  mysterious  to  Undine,  and 
none  more  so  than  the  unaccountable  necessity  of 
"dragging" — as  she  phrased  it — Mrs.  Spragg  into  the 
affair.  It  was  an  accepted  article  of  the  Apex  creed 
that  parental  detachment  should  be  completest  at  the 
moment  when  the  filial  fate  was  decided;  and  to  find 
that  New  York  reversed  this  rule  was  as  puzzling  to 
Undine  as  to  her  mother.  Mrs.  Spragg  was  so  un 
prepared  for  the  part  she  was  to  play  that  on  the  occa 
sion  of  her  visit  to  Mrs.  Mar  veil  her  helplessness  had 
infected  Undine,  and  their  half-hour  in  the  sober  faded 
drawing-room  remained  among  the  girl's  most  unsatis 
factory  memories. 

She  re-entered  it  alone  with  more  assurance.  Her 
confidence  in  her  beauty  had  hitherto  carried  her 
through  every  ordeal;  and  it  was  fortified  now  by  the 
feeling  of  power  that  came  with  the  sense  of  being 
loved.  If  they  would  only  leave  her  mother  out  she 
was  sure,  in  her  own  phrase,  of  being  able  to  "run 
the  thing";  and  Mrs.  Spragg  had  providentially  been 
left  out  of  the  Dagonet  dinner. 

It  was  to  consist,  it  appeared,  only  of  the  small 
family  group  Undine  had  already  met;  and,  seated  at 
old  Mr.  Dagonet's  right,  in  the  high  dark  dining-room 

[891 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

with  mahogany  doors  and  dim  portraits  of  "Signers" 
and  their  females,  she  felt  a  conscious  joy  in  her  as 
cendancy.  Old  Mr.  Dagonet — small,  frail  and  softly 
sardonic — appeared  to  fall  at  once  under  her  spell.  If 
she  felt,  beneath  his  amenity,  a  kind  of  delicate  danger- 
ousness,  like  that  of  some  fine  surgical  instrument,  she 
ignored  it  as  unimportant;  for  she  had  as  yet  no  clear 
perception  of  forces  that  did  not  directly  affect  her. 

Mrs.  Marvell,  low-voiced,  faded,  yet  impressive,  was 
less  responsive  to  her  arts,  and  Undine  divined  in  her 
the  head  of  the  opposition  to  Ralph's  marriage.  Mrs. 
Heeny  had  reported  that  Mrs.  Marvell  had  other  views 
for  her  son;  and  this  was  confirmed  by  such  echoes  of 
the  short  sharp  struggle  as  reached  the  throbbing  lis 
teners  at  the  Stentorian.  But  the  conflict  over,  the  air 
had  immediately  cleared,  showing  the  enemy  in  the  act 
of  unconditional  surrender.  It  surprised  Undine  that 
there  had  been  no  reprisals,  no  return  on  the  points  con 
ceded.  That  was  not  her  idea  of  warfare,  and  she  could 
ascribe  the  completeness  of  the  victory  only  to  the  ef 
fect  of  her  charms. 

Mrs.  Marvell's  manner  did  not  express  entire  sub 
jugation;  yet  she  seemed  anxious  to  dispel  any  doubts 
of  her  good  faith,  and  if  she  left  the  burden  of  the  talk 
to  her  lively  daughter  it  might  have  been  because  she 
felt  more  capable  of  showing  indulgence  by  her  silence 
than  in  her  speech. 

As  for  Mrs.  Fairford,  she  had  never  seemed  more 
[90] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

brilliantly  bent  on  fusing  the  various  elements  under 
her  hand.  Undine  had  already  discovered  that  she 
adored  her  brother,  and  had  guessed  that  this  would 
make  her  either  a  strong  ally  or  a  determined  enemy. 
The  latter  alternative,  however,  did  not  alarm  the  girl. 
She  thought  Mrs.  Fairford  "bright,"  and  wanted  to 
be  liked  by  her;  and  she  was  in  the  state  of  dizzy  self- 
assurance  when  it  seemed  easy  to  win  any  sympathy 
she  chose  to  seek. 

For  the  only  other  guests — Mrs.  Fairford's  husband, 
and  the  elderly  Charles  Bowen  who  seemed  to  be  her 
special  friend — Undine  had  no  attention  to  spare: 
they  remained  on  a  plane  with  the  dim  pictures  hang 
ing  at  her  back.  She  had  expected  a  larger  party; 
but  she  was  relieved,  on  the  whole,  that  it  was  small 
enough  to  permit  of  her  dominating  it.  Not  that  she 
wished  to  do  so  by  any  loudness  of  assertion.  Her  quick 
ness  in  noting  external  differences  had  already  taught 
her  to  modulate  and  lower  her  voice,  and  to  replace 
"The  z-dea!"  and  "I  wouldn't  wonder"  by  more  pol 
ished  locutions;  and  she  had  not  been  ten  minutes  at 
table  before  she  found  that  to  seem  very  much  in  love, 
and  a  little  confused  and  subdued  by  the  newness  and 
intensity  of  the  sentiment,  was,  to  the  Dagonet  mind, 
the  becoming  attitude  for  a  young  lady  in  her  situa 
tion.  The  part  was  not  hard  to  play,  for  she  was  in 
love,  of  course.  It  was  pleasant,  when  she  looked  across 
the  table,  to  meet  Ralph's  grey  eyes,  with  that  new 

[911 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

look  in  them,  and  to  feel  that  she  had  kindled  it;  but 
it  was  only  part  of  her  larger  pleasure  in  the  general 
homage  to  her  beauty,  in  the  sensations  of  interest  and 
curiosity  excited  by  everything  about  her,  from  the 
family  portraits  overhead  to  the  old  Dagonet  silver  on 
the  table — which  were  to  be  hers  too,  after  all! 

The  talk,  as  at  Mrs.  Fairford's,  confused  her  by  its 
lack  of  the  personal  allusion,  its  tendency  to  turn  to 
books,  pictures  and  politics.  "Politics,"  to  Undine,  had 
always  been  like  a  kind  of  back-kitchen  to  business — 
the  place  where  the  refuse  was  thrown  and  the  doubt 
ful  messes  were  brewed.  As  a  drawing-room  topic,  and 
one  to  provoke  disinterested  sentiments,  it  had  the  hol- 
lowness  of  Fourth  of  July  orations,  and  her  mind  wan 
dered  in  spite  of  the  desire  to  appear  informed  and  com 
petent. 

Old  Mr.  Dagonet,  with  his  reedy  staccato  voice,  that 
gave  polish  and  relief  to  every  syllable,  tried  to  come 
to  her  aid  by  questioning  her  affably  about  her  family 
and  the  friends  she  had  made  in  New  York.  But  the 
caryatid-parent,  who  exists  simply  as  a  filial  prop,  is 
not  a  fruitful  theme,  and  Undine,  called  on  for  the  first 
time  to  view  her  own  progenitors  as  a  subject  of  con 
versation,  was  struck  by  their  lack  of  points.  She  had 
never  paused  to  consider  what  her  father  and  mother 
were  "interested"  in,  and,  challenged  to  specify,  could 
have  named — with  sincerity — only  herself.  On  the  sub 
ject  of  her  New  York  friends  it  was  not  much  easier 

[92] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

to  enlarge;  for  so  far  her  circle  had  grown  less  rapidly 
than  she  expected.  She  had  fancied  Ralph's  wooing 
would  at  once  admit  her  to  all  his  social  privileges ;  but 
he  had  shown  a  puzzling  reluctance  to  introduce  her 
to  the  Van  Degen  set,  where  he  came  and  went  with 
such  familiarity;  and  the  persons  he  seemed  anxious 
to  have  her  know — a  few  frumpy  "clever  women"  of 
his  sister's  age,  and  one  or  two  brisk  old  ladies  in 
shabby  houses  with  mahogany  furniture  and  Stuart 
portraits — did  not  offer  the  opportunities  she  sought. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  many  people  yet — I  tell  Ralph 
he's  got  to  hurry  up  and  take  me  round,"  she  said  to 
Mr.  Dagonet,  with  a  side-sparkle  for  Ralph,  whose 
gaze,  between  the  flowers  and  lights,  she  was  aware  of 
perpetually  drawing. 

"My  daughter  will  take  you — you  must  know  his 
mother's  friends,"  the  old  gentleman  rejoined  while 
Mrs.  Marvell  smiled  noncommittally. 

"But  you  have  a  great  friend  of  your  own — the  lady 
who  takes  you  into  society,"  Mr.  Dagonet  pursued; 
and  Undine  had  the  sense  that  the  irrepressible  Mabel 
was  again  "pushing  in." 

"Oh,  yes — Mabel  Lipscomb.  We  were  school-mates," 
she  said  indifferently. 

"Lipscomb?  Lipscomb?  What  is  Mr.  Lipscomb's 
occupation?" 

"He's  a  broker,"  said  Undine,  glad  to  be  able  to 
place  her  friend's  husband  in  so  handsome  a  light.  The 

[93] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

subtleties  of  a  professional  classification  unknown  to 
Apex  had  already  taught  her  that  in  New  York  it  is 
more  distinguished  to  be  a  broker  than  a  dentist;  and 
she  was  surprised  at  Mr.  Dagonet's  lack  of  enthu 
siasm. 

"Ah?  A  broker?"  He  said  it  almost  as  Popple  might 
have  said  "A  dentist?"  and  Undine  found  herself  astray 
v  in  a  new  labyrinth  of  social  distinctions.  She  felt  a  sud 
den  contempt  for  Harry  Lipscomb,  who  had  already 
struck  her  as  too  loud,  and  irrelevantly  comic.  "I  guess 
Mabel'll  get  a  divorce  pretty  soon,"  she  added,  desir 
ing,  for  personal  reasons,  to  present  Mrs.  Lipscomb 
as  favourably  as  possible. 

Mr.  Dagonet's  handsome  eye-brows  drew  together. 
"A  divorce?  H'm — that's  bad.  Has  he  been  misbehav 
ing  himself?" 

Undine  looked  innocently  surprised.  "Oh,  I  guess 
not.  They  like  each  other  well  enough.  But  he's  been 
a  disappointment  to  her.  He  isn't  in  the  right  set,  and 
I  think  Mabel  realizes  she'll  never  really  get  anywhere 
till  she  gets  rid  of  him." 

These  words,  uttered  in  the  high  fluting  tone  that 
she  rose  to  when  sure  of  her  subject,  fell  on  a  pause 
which  prolonged  and  deepened  itself  to  receive  them, 
while  every  face  at  the  table,  Ralph  Marvell's  excepted, 
reflected  in  varying  degree  Mr.  Dagonet's  pained  as 
tonishment. 

"  But,  my  dear  young  lady — what  would  your  friend's 
[94] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

own  situation  be  if,  as  you  put  it,  she  'got  rid5  of  her 
husband  on  so  trivial  a  pretext?" 

Undine,  surprised  at  his  dullness,  tried  to  explain. 
"Oh,  that  wouldn't  be  the  reason  given,  of  course.  Any 
lawyer  could  fix  it  up  for  them.  Don't  they  generally 
call  it  desertion?" 

There  was  another,  more  palpitating,  silence,  broken 
by  a  laugh  from  Ralph. 

"Ralph!"  his  mother  breathed;  then,  turning  to  Un 
dine,  she  said  with  a  constrained  smile:  "I  believe  in 
certain  parts  of  the  country  such — unfortunate  arrange 
ments — are  beginning  to  be  tolerated.  But  in  New  York, 
in  spite  of  our  growing  indifference,  a  divorced  woman 
is  still — thank  heaven! — at  a  decided  disadvantage." 

Undine's  eyes  opened  wide.  Here  at  last  was  a  topic 
that  really  interested  her,  and  one  that  gave  another 
amazing  glimpse  into  the  camera  obscura  of  New  York 
society.  "Do  you  mean  to  say  Mabel  would  be  worse 
off,  then?  Couldn't  she  even  go  round  as  much  as  she 
does  now?" 

Mrs.  Marvell  met  this  gravely.  "It  would  depend,  I 
should  say,  on  the  kind  of  people  she  wished  to  see." 

"Oh,  the  very  best,  of  course!  That  would  be  her 
only  object." 

Ralph  interposed  with  another  laugh.  "You  see,  Un 
dine,  you'd  better  think  twice  before  you  divorce  me!" 

"Ralph!"  his  mother  again  breathed;  but  the  girl, 
flushed  and  sparkling,  flung  back:  "Oh,  it  all  depends 

[95] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

on  you!  Out  in  Apex,  if  a  girl  marries  a  man  who  don't 
come  up  to  what  she  expected,  people  consider  it's  to 
her  credit  to  want  to  change.  You'd  better  think  twice 
of  that!" 

"If  I  were  only  sure  of  knowing  what  you  expect!" 
he  caught  up  her  joke,  tossing  it  back  at  her  across  the 
fascinated  silence  of  their  listeners. 

"Why,  everything!"  she  announced — and  Mr.  Dago- 
net,  turning,  laid  an  intricately-veined  old  hand  on 
hers,  and  said,  with  a  change  of  tone  that  relaxed  the 
tension  of  the  listeners:  "My  child,  if  you  look  like  that 
you'll  get  it." 


VIII 

IT  was  doubtless  owing  to  Mrs.  Fairford's  foresight 
that  such  possiblities   of   tension  were   curtailed, 
after  dinner,  by  her  carrying  off  Ralph  and  his  be 
trothed  to  the  theatre. 

Mr.  Dagonet,  it  was  understood,  always  went  to 
bed  after  an  hour's  whist  with  his  daughter;  and  the 
silent  Mr.  Fairford  gave  his  evenings  to  bridge  at  his 
club.  The  party,  therefore,  consisted  only  of  Undine 
and  Ralph,  with  Mrs.  Fairford  and  her  attendant 
friend.  Undine  vaguely  wondered  why  the  grave  and 
grey-haired  Mr.  Bowen  formed  so  invariable  a  part  of 
that  lady's  train;  but  she  concluded  that  it  was  the 

[96] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

New  York  custom  for  married  ladies  to  have  gentle 
men  "'round"  (as  girls  had  in  Apex),  and  that  Mr. 
Bowen  was  the  sole  survivor  of  Laura  Fairford's  ear 
lier  triumphs. 

She  had,  however,  little  time  to  give  to  such  con 
jectures,  for  the  performance  they  were  attending — the 
debut  of  a  fashionable  London  actress — had  attracted 
a  large  audience  in  which  Undine  immediately  recog 
nized  a  number  of  familiar  faces.  Her  engagement  had 
been  announced  only  the  day  before,  and  she  had  the 
delicious  sense  of  being  "in  all  the  papers,"  and  of 
focussing  countless  glances  of  interest  and  curiosity  as 
she  swept  through  the  theatre  in  Mrs.  Fairford's  wake. 
Their  stalls  were  near  the  stage,  and  progress  thither 
was  slow  enough  to  permit  of  prolonged  enjoyment  of 
this  sensation.  Before  passing  to  her  place  she  paused 
for  Ralph  to  remove  her  cloak,  and  as  he  lifted  it  from 
her  shoulders  she  heard  a  lady  say  behind  her:  "There 

she  is — the  one  in  white,  with  the  lovely  back "  and 

a  man  answer:  "Gad!  Where  did  he  find  anything  as 
good  as  that?" 

Anonymous  approval  was  sweet  enough;  but  she  was 
to  taste  a  moment  more  exquisite  when,  in  the  pro 
scenium  box  across  the  house,  she  saw  Clare  Van  Degen 
seated  beside  the  prim  figure  of  Miss  Harriet  Ray. 
"They're  here  to  see  me  with  him — they  hate  it,  but 
they  couldn't  keep  away!"  She  turned  and  lifted  a 
smile  of  possessorship  to  Ralph. 

[97] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Mrs.  Fairford  seemed  also  struck  by  the  presence  of 
the  two  ladies,  and  Undine  heard  her  whisper  to  Mr. 
Bowen:  "Do  you  see  Clare  over  there — and  Harriet 
with  her?  Harriet  would  come — I  call  it  Spartan!  And 
so  like  Clare  to  ask  her!" 

Her  companion  laughed.  "It's  one  of  the  deepest  in 
stincts  in  human  nature.  The  murdered  are  as  much 
given  as  the  murderer  to  haunting  the  scene  of  the 
crime." 

Doubtless  guessing  Ralph's  desire  to  have  Undine  to 
himself,  Mrs.  Fairford  had  sent  the  girl  in  first;  and 
Undine,  as  she  seated  herself,  was  aware  that  the  oc 
cupant  of  the  next  stall  half  turned  to  her,  as  with  a 
vague  gesture  of  recognition.  But  just  then  the  cur 
tain  rose,  and  she  became  absorbed  in  the  develop 
ment  of  the  drama,  especially  as  it  tended  to  display 
the  remarkable  toilets  which  succeeded  each  other  on 
the  person  of  its  leading  lady.  Undine,  seated  at  Ralph 
Marvell's  side,  and  feeling  the  thrill  of  his  proximity 
as  a  subtler  element  in  the  general  interest  she  was 
exciting,  was  at  last  repaid  for  the  disappointment  of 
her  evening  at  the  opera.  It  was  characteristic  of  her 
that  she  remembered  her  failures  as  keenly  as  her 
triumphs,  and  that  the  passionate  desire  to  obliterate, 
to  "get  even"  with  them,  was  always  among  the  la 
tent  incentives  of  her  conduct.  Now  at  last  she  was 
having  what  she  wanted — she  was  in  conscious  pos 
session  of  the  "real  thing";  and  through  her  other, 

[981 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

more  diffused,  sensations  Ralph's  adoration  gave  her 
such  a  last  refinement  of  pleasure  as  might  have  come 
to  some  warrior  Queen  borne  in  triumph  by  captive 
princes,  and  reading  in  the  eyes  of  one  the  passion  he 
dared  not  speak. 

When  the  curtain  fell  this  vague  enjoyment  was  V 
heightened  by  various  acts  of  recognition.  All  the  peo 
ple  she  wanted  to  "go  with,"  as  they  said  in  Apex, 
seemed  to  be  about  her  in  the  stalls  and  boxes;  and  her 
eyes  continued  to  revert  with  special  satisfaction  to  the 
incongruous  group  formed  by  Mrs.  Peter  Van  Degen 
and  Miss  Ray.  The  sight  made  it  irresistible  to  whisper 
to  Ralph:  "You  ought  to  go  round  and  talk  to  your 
cousin.  Have  you  told  her  we're  engaged?" 

"Clare?  of  course.  She's  going  to  call  on  you  to 
morrow." 

"Oh,  she  needn't  put  herself  out — she's  never  been 
yet,"  said  Undine  loftily. 

He  made  no  rejoinder,  but  presently  asked:  "Who's 
that  you're  waving  to?" 

"Mr.  Popple.  He's  coming  round  to  see  us.  You  know 
he  wants  to  paint  me."  Undine  fluttered  and  beamed 
as  the  brilliant  Popple  made  his  way  across  the  stalls 
to  the  seat  which  her  neighbour  had  momentarily  left. 

"  First-rate  chap  next  to  you — whoever  he  is — to  give 
me  this  chance,"  the  artist  declared.  "Ha,  Ralph,  my 
boy,  how  did  you  pull  it  off?  That's  what  we're  all  of 
us  wondering."  He  leaned  over  to  give  Marvell's  hand 

[99] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

the  ironic  grasp  of  celibacy.  "Well,  you've  left  us  la 
menting:  he  has,  you  know,  Miss  Spragg.  But  I've  got 
one  pull  over  the  others — I  can  paint  you!  He  can't 
forbid  that,  can  he?  Not  before  marriage,  anyhow!" 

Undine  divided  her  shining  glances  between  the  two. 
"I  guess  he  isn't  going  to  treat  me  any  different  after 
ward,"  she  proclaimed  with  joyous  defiance. 

"Ah,  well,  there's  no  telling,  you  know.  Hadn't  we 
better  begin  at  once?  Seriously,  I  want  awfully  to  get 
you  into  the  spring  show." 

"Oh,  really?  That  would  be  too  lovely!" 

"You  would  be,  certainly — the  way  I  mean  to  do 
you.  But  I  see  Ralph  getting  glum.  Cheer  up,  my  dear 
fellow;  I  daresay  you'll  be  invited  to  some  of  the  sit 
tings — that's  for  Miss  Spragg  to  say. — Ah,  here  comes 
your  neighbour  back,  confound  him —  You'll  let  me 
know  when  we  can  begin?" 

As  Popple  moved  away  Undine  turned  eagerly  to 
Marvell.  "Do  you  suppose  there's  time?  I'd  love  to 
have  him  to  do  me!" 

Ralph  smiled.  "My  poor  child — he  would  'do'  you, 
with  a  vengeance.  Infernal  cheek,  his  asking  you  to 
sit " 

She  stared.  "But  why?  He's  painted  your  cousin, 
and  all  the  smart  women." 

"Oh,  if  a  *  smart'  portrait's  all  you  want!" 

"I   want   what    the   others   want,"    she   answered, 
frowning  and  pouting  a  little. 
[100] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

She  was  already  beginning  to  resent  in  Ralph  the 
slightest  sign  of  resistance  to  her  pleasure;  and  her 
resentment  took  the  form — a  familiar  one  in  Apex 
courtships — of  turning  on  him,  in  the  next  entr'acte, 
a  deliberately  averted  shoulder.  The  result  of  this  was 
to  bring  her,  for  the  first  time,  in  more  direct  relation 
to  her  other  neighbour.  As  she  turned  he  turned  too, 
showing  her,  above  a  shining  shirt-front  fastened  with 
a  large  imitation  pearl,  a  ruddy  plump  snub  face  with 
out  an  angle  in  it,  which  yet  looked  sharper  than  a 
razor.  Undine's  eyes  met  his  with  a  startled  look,  and 
for  a  long  moment  they  remained  suspended  on  each 
other's  stare. 

Undine  at  length  shrank  back  with  an  unrecogniz- 
ing  face;  but  her  movement  made  her  opera-glass  slip  to 
the  floor,  and  her  neighbour  bent  down  and  picked  it  up. 

"Well — don't  you  know  me  yet?"  he  said  with  a 
slight  smile,  as  he  restored  the  glass  to  her. 

She  had  grown  white  to  the  lips,  and  when  she  tried 
to  speak  the  effort  produced  only  a  faint  click  in  her 
throat.  She  felt  that  the  change  in  her  appearance  must 
be  visible,  and  the  dread  of  letting  Marvell  see  it  made 
her  continue  to  turn  her  ravaged  face  to  her  other 
neighbour.  The  round  black  eyes  set  prominently  in 
the  latter's  round  glossy  countenance  had  expressed 
at  first  only  an  impersonal  and  slightly  ironic  interest; 
but  a  look  of  surprise  grew  in  them  as  Undine's  silence 
continued. 

[1011 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"What's  the  matter?  Don't  you  want  me  to  speak 
to  you?" 

She  became  aware  that  Marvell,  as  if  unconscious 
of  her  slight  show  of  displeasure,  had  left  his  seat,  and 
was  making  his  way  toward  the  aisle;  and  this  asser 
tion  of  independence,  which  a  moment  before  she 
would  so  deeply  have  resented,  now  gave  her  a  feeling 
of  intense  relief. 

"No — don't  speak  to  me,  please.  I'll  tell  you  another 
time — I'll  write."  Her  neighbour  continued  to  gaze  at 
her,  forming  his  lips  into  a  noiseless  whistle  under  his 
small  dark  moustache. 

"Well,  I—  That's  about  the  stiffest,"  he  murmured; 
and  as  she  made  no  answer  he  added:  "Afraid  I'll  ask 
to  be  introduced  to  your  friend?" 

She  made  a  faint  movement  of  entreaty.  "I  can't 
explain.  I  promise  to  see  you;  but  I  ask  you  not  to  talk 
to  me  now." 

He  unfolded  his  programme,  and  went  on  speaking 
in  a  low  tone  while  he  affected  to  study  it.  "Anything 
to  oblige,  of  course.  That's  always  been  my  motto.  But 
is  it  a  bargain — fair  and  square?  You'll  see  me?" 

She  receded  farther  from  him.  "  I  promise.  I — I  want 
to,"  she  faltered. 

"All  right,  then.  Call  me  up  in  the  morning  at  the 
Driscoll  Building.  Seven-O-nine — got  it?" 

She  nodded,  and  he  added  in  a  still  lower  tone:  "I 
suppose  I  can  congratulate  you,  anyhow?"  and  then, 
[102] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

without  waiting  for  her  reply,  turned  to  study  Mrs. 
Van  Degen's  box  through  his  opera-glass. 

Clare,  as  if  aware  of  the  scrutiny  fixed  on  her  from 
below,  leaned  back  and  threw  a  question  over  her 
shoulder  to  Ralph  Marvell,  who  had  just  seated  him 
self  behind  her. 

"  Who's  the  funny  man  with  the  red  face  talking  to 
Miss  Spragg?" 

Ralph  bent  forward.  "The  man  next  to  her?  Never 
saw  him  before.  But  I  think  you're  mistaken :  she's  not 
speaking  to  him." 

"She  was—  Wasn't  she,  Harriet?" 

Miss  Ray  pinched  her  lips  together  without  speak 
ing,  and  Mrs.  Van  Degen  paused  for  the  fraction  of  a 
second.  "Perhaps  he's  an  Apex  friend,"  she  then  sug 
gested. 

"Very  likely.  Only  I  think  she'd  have  introduced 
him  if  he  had  been." 

His  cousin  faintly  shrugged.  "Shall  you  encourage 
that?" 

Peter  Van  Degen,  who  had  strayed  into  his  wife's 
box  for  a  moment,  caught  the  colloquy,  and  lifted  his 
opera-glass. 

"The  fellow  next  to  Miss  Spragg?  (By  George,  Ralph, 
she's  ripping  to-night!)  Wait  a  minute — I  know  his 
face.  Saw  him  in  old  Harmon  Driscoll's  office  the  day 
of  the  Eubaw  Mine  meeting.  This  chap's  his  secretary, 
or  something.  Driscoll  called  him  in  to  give  some  facts 
[103] 


THE   CUSTOM   OF  THE   COUNTRY 

to  the  directors,  and  he  seemed  a  mighty  wide-awake 
customer." 

Clare  Van  Degen  turned  gaily  to  her  cousin.  "If  he 
has  anything  to  do  with  the  Driscolls  you'd  better 
cultivate  him!  That's  the  kind  of  acquaintance  the 
Dagonets  have  always  needed.  I  married  to  set  them 
an  example!" 

Ralph  rose  with  a  laugh.  "You're  right.  I'll  hurry 
back  and  make  his  acquaintance."  He  held  out  his 
hand  to  his  cousin,  avoiding  her  disappointed  eyes. 

Undine,  on  entering  her  bedroom  late  that  evening, 
was  startled  by  the  presence  of  a  muffled  figure  which 
revealed  itself,  through  the  dimness,  as  the  ungirded 
midnight  outline  of  Mrs.  Spragg. 

"Mother?  What  on  earth ?"  the  girl  exclaimed,  as 

Mrs.  Spragg  pressed  the  electric  button  and  flooded 
the  room  with  light.  The  idea  of  a  mother's  sitting  up 
for  her  daughter  was  so  foreign  to  Apex  customs  that 
it  roused  only  mistrust  and  irritation  in  the  object  of 
the  demonstration. 

Mrs.  Spragg  came  forward  deprecatingly  to  lift  the 
cloak  from  her  daughter's  shoulders. 

"I  just  had  to,  Undie— I  told  father  I  had  to.  I 
wanted  to  hear  all  about  it." 

Undine  shrugged  away  from  her.  "Mercy!  At  this 
hour?  You'll  be  as  white  as  a  sheet  to-morrow,  sitting 
up  all  night  like  this." 

[104] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

She  moved  toward  the  toilet-table,  and  began  to  de 
molish  with  feverish  hands  the  structure  which  Mrs. 
Heeny,  a  few  hours  earlier,  had  so  lovingly  raised.  But 
the  rose  caught  in  a  mesh  of  hair,  and  Mrs.  Spragg, 
venturing  timidly  to  release  it,  had  a  full  view  of  her 
daughter's  face  in  the  glass. 

"Why,  Undie,  you're  as  white  as  a  sheet  now!  You 
look  fairly  sick.  What's  the  matter,  daughter?" 

The  girl  broke  away  from  her. 

"Oh,  can't  you  leave  me  alone,  mother?  There — do 
I  look  white  now?"  she  cried,  the  blood  flaming  into 
her  pale  cheeks;  and  as  Mrs.  Spragg  shrank  back,  she 
added  more  mildly,  in  the  tone  of  a  parent  rebuking 
a  persistent  child:  "It's  enough  to  make  anybody  sick 
to  be  stared  at  that  way!" 

Mrs.  Spragg  overflowed  with  compunction.  "I'm 
so  sorry,  Undie.  I  guess  it  was  just  seeing  you  in  this 
glare  of  light." 

"Yes — the  light's  awful;  do  turn  some  off,"  ordered 
Undine,  for  whom,  ordinarily,  no  radiance  was  too 
strong;  and  Mrs.  Spragg,  grateful  to  have  commands 
laid  upon  her,  hastened  to  obey. 

Undine,  after  this,  submitted  in  brooding  silence  to 
having  her  dress  unlaced,  and  her  slippers  and  dressing- 
gown  brought  to  her.  Mrs.  Spragg  visibly  yearned 
to  say  more,  but  she  restrained  the  impulse  lest  it 
should  provoke  her  dismissal. 

"Won't  you  take  just  a  sup  of  milk  before  you  go  to 
[  1051 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

bed?"  she  suggested  at  length,  as  Undine  sank  into  an 
armchair.  "I've  got  some  for  you  right  here  in  the 
parlour." 

Without  looking  up  the  girl  answered:  "No.  I  don't 
want  anything.  Do  go  to  bed." 

Her  mother  seemed  to  be  struggling  between  the 
life-long  instinct  of  obedience  and  a  swift  unformulated 
fear.  "I'm  going,  Undie."  She  wavered.  "Didn't  they 
receive  you  right,  daughter?"  she  asked  with  sudden 
resolution. 

"  What  nonsense !  How  should  they  receive  me?  Every 
body  was  lovely  to  me."  Undine  rose  to  her  feet  and 
went  on  with  her  undressing,  tossing  her  clothes  on 
the  floor  and  shaking  her  hair  over  her  bare  shoulders. 

Mrs.  Spragg  stooped  to  gather  up  the  scattered 
garments  as  they  fell,  folding  them  with  a  wistful 
caressing  touch,  and  laying  them  on  the  lounge,  without 
daring  to  raise  her  eyes  to  her  daughter.  It  was  not 
till  she  heard  Undine  throw  herself  on  the  bed  that 
she  went  toward  her  and  drew  the  coverlet  up  with 
deprecating  hands. 

"Oh,  do  put  the  light  out— I'm  dead  tired,"  the  girl 
grumbled,  pressing  her  face  into  the  pillow. 

Mrs.  Spragg  turned  away  obediently;  then,  gathering 
all  her  scattered  impulses  into  a  passionate  act  of 
courage,  she  moved  back  to  the  bedside. 

"Undie — you  didn't  see  anybody — I  mean  at  the 
theatre?  Anybody  you  didn't  want  to  see?" 
\  1061 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine,  at  the  question,  raised  her  head  and  started 
upright  against  the  tossed  pillows,  her  white  exasper 
ated  face  close  to  her  mother's  twitching  features.  The 
two  women  examined  each  other  a  moment,  fear  and 
anger  in  their  crossed  glances;  then  Undine  answered: 
"No,  nobody.  Good-night." 

IX 

T  TNDINE,  late  the  next  day,  waited  alone  under 
\^/  the  leafless  trellising  of  a  wistaria  arbour  on  the 
west  side  of  the  Central  Park.  She  had  put  on  her 
plainest  dress,  and  wound  a  closely  patterned  veil  over 
her  least  vivid  hat;  but  even  thus  toned  down  to  the 
situation  she  was  conscious  of  blazing  out  from  it  in 
conveniently. 

The  habit  of  meeting  young  men  in  sequestered  spots 
was  not  unknown  to  her:  the  novelty  was  in  feeling 
any  embarrassment  about  it.  Even  now  she  was  dis 
turbed  not  so  much  by  the  unlikely  chance  of  an  acci 
dental  encounter  with  Ralph  Marvell  as  by  the  re 
membrance  of  similar  meetings,  far  from  accidental, 
with  the  romantic  Aaronson.  Could  it  be  that  the  hand 
now  adorned  with  Ralph's  engagement  ring  had  once, 
in  this  very  spot,  surrendered  itself  to  the  riding-mas 
ter's  pressure?  At  the  thought  a  wave  of  physical  dis 
gust  passed  over  her,  blotting  out  another  memory  as 
distasteful  but  more  remote. 
[1071 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

It  was  revived  by  the  appearance  of  a  ruddy  middle- 
sized  young  man,  his  stoutish  figure  tightly  buttoned 
into  a  square-shouldered  over-coat,  who  presently  ap 
proached  along  the  path  that  led  to  the  arbour.  Sil 
houetted  against  the  slope  of  the  asphalt,  the  new 
comer  revealed  an  outline  thick  yet  compact,  with 
a  round  head  set  on  a  neck  in  which,  at  the  first  chance, 
prosperity  would  be  likely  to  develop  a  red  crease. 
His  face,  with  its  rounded  surfaces,  and  the  sanguine 
innocence  of  a  complexion  belied  by  prematurely  astute 
black  eyes,  had  a  look  of  jovial  cunning  which  Undine 
had  formerly  thought  "smart"  but  which  now  struck 
her  as  merely  vulgar.  She  felt  that  in  the  Marvell  set 
Elmer  Moffatt  would  have  been  stamped  as  "not 
a  gentleman."  Nevertheless  something  in  his  look 
seemed  to  promise  the  capacity  to  develop  into  any 
character  he  might  care  to  assume;  though  it  did  not 
seem  probable  that,  for  the  present,  that  of  a  gentleman 
would  be  among  them.  He  had  always  had  a  brisk 
swaggering  step,  and  the  faintly  impudent  tilt  of  the 
head  that  she  had  once  thought  "dashing";  but  whereas 
this  look  had  formerly  denoted  a  somewhat  desperate 
defiance  of  the  world  and  its  judgments  it  now  suggested 
an  almost  assured  relation  to  these  powers;  and  Undine's 
heart  sank  at  the  thought  of  what  the  change  implied. 

As  he  drew  nearer,  the  young  man's  air  of  assur 
ance  was  replaced  by  an  expression  of  mildly  humor 
ous  surprise. 

[108] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Well — this  is  white  of  you,  Undine!"  he  said,  tak 
ing  her  lifeless  fingers  into  his  dapperly  gloved  hand. 

Through  her  veil  she  formed  the  words:  "I  said  I'd 
come." 

He  laughed.  "That's  so.  And  you  see  I  believed  you. 
Though  I  might  not  have " 

"I  don't  see  the  use  of  beginning  like  this,"  she  in 
terrupted  nervously. 

"That's  so  too.  Suppose  we  walk  along  a  little  ways? 
It's  rather  chilly  standing  round." 

He  turned  down  the  path  that  descended  toward  the 
Ramble  and  the  girl  moved  on  beside  him  with  her 
long  flowing  steps. 

When  they  had  reached  the  comparative  shelter  of 
the  interlacing  trees  Moffatt  paused  again  to  say:  "If 
we're  going  to  talk  I'd  like  to  see  you,  Undine;"  and 
after  a  first  moment  of  reluctance  she  submissively 
threw  back  her  veil. 

He  let  his  eyes  rest  on  her  in  silence;  then  he  said 
judicially:  "You've  filled  out  some;  but  you're  paler." 
After  another  appreciative  scrutiny  he  added :  "  There's 
mighty  few  women  as  well  worth  looking  at,  and 
I'm  obliged  to  you  for  letting  me  have  the  chance 
again." 

Undine's  brows  drew  together,  but  she  softened  her 
frown  to  a  quivering  smile. 

"I'm  glad  to  see  you  too,  Elmer — I  am,  really!" 

He  returned  her  smile  while  his  glance  continued  to 
[109] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

study  her  humorously.   "You  didn't  betray  the  fact 
last  night,  Miss  Spragg." 

"I  was  so  taken  aback.  I  thought  you  were  out  in 
Alaska  somewhere." 

The  young  man  shaped  his  lips  into  the  mute  whistle 
by  which  he  habitually  vented  his  surprise.  "You  did? 
Didn't  Abner  E.  Spragg  tell  you  he'd  seen  me  down 
town?" 

Undine  gave  him  a  startled  glance.  "Father? 
Why,  have  you  seen  him?  He  never  said  a  word 
about  it!" 

Her  companion's  whistle  became  audible.  "  He's  run 
ning  yet!"  he  said  gaily.  "I  wish  I  could  scare  some 
people  as  easy  as  I  can  your  father." 

The  girl  hesitated.  "  I  never  felt  toward  you  the  way 
father  did,"  she  hazarded  at  length;  and  he  gave  her 
another  long  look  in  return. 

"Well,  if  they'd  left  you  alone  I  don't  believe  you'd 
ever  have  acted  mean  to  me,"  was  the  conclusion  he 
drew  from  it. 

"I    didn't  mean   to,  Elmer.   ...   I  give  you   my 
word — but  I  was  so  young  ...  I  didn't  know  any- 
"  thing.  .  ." 

His  eyes  had  a  twinkle  of  reminiscent  pleasantry. 
"  No — I  don't  suppose  it  would  teach  a  girl  much  to  be 
engaged  two  years  to  a  stiff  like  Millard  Binch;  and 
that  was  about  all  that  had  happened  to  you  before 
I  came  along." 

[1101 


THE   CUSTOM   OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine  flushed  to  the  forehead.  "Oh,  Elmer — I  was 
only  a  child  when  I  was  engaged  to  Millard " 

"That's  a  fact.  And  you  went  on  being  one  a  good 
while  afterward.  The  Apex  Eagle  always  head-lined  you 
4 The  child-bride' " 

"I  can't  see  what's  the  use — now ." 

"That  ruled  out  of  court  too?  See  here,  Undine — 
what  can  we  talk  about?  I  understood  that  was  what 
we  were  here  for." 

"Of  course."  She  made  an  effort  at  recovery.  "I 
only  meant  to  say — what's  the  use  of  raking  up  things 
that  are  over?" 

"Rake  up?  That's  the  idea,  is  it?  Was  that  why  you 
tried  to  cut  me  last  night?" 

"I — oh,  Elmer!  I  didn't  mean  to;  only,  you  see,  I'm 
engaged." 

"Oh,  I  saw  that  fast  enough.  I'd  have  seen  it  even 
if  I  didn't  read  the  papers."  He  gave  a  short  laugh. 
"He  was  feeling  pretty  good,  sitting  there  alongside  of 
you,  wasn't  he?  I  don't  wonder  he  was.  I  remember. 
But  I  don't  see  that  that  was  a  reason  for  cold- 
shouldering  me.  I'm  a  respectable  member  of  society 
now — I'm  one  of  Harmon  B.  Driscoll's  private  secre 
taries."  He  brought  out  the  fact  with  mock  solemnity. 

But  to  Undine,  though  undoubtedly  impressive,  the 
statement  did  not  immediately  present  itself  as  a  sub 
ject  for  pleasantry. 

"Elmer  Moffatt— you  are? " 
[1111 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

He  laughed  again.  "Guess  you'd  have  remembered 
me  last  night  if  you'd  known  it." 

She  was  following  her  own  train  of  thought  with  a 
look  of  pale  intensity.  "You're  living  in  New  York, 
then — you're  going  to  live  here  right  along?" 

"Well,  it  looks  that  way;  as  long  as  I  can  hang  on 
to  this  job.  Great  men  always  gravitate  to  the  metrop 
olis.  And  I  gravitated  here  just  as  Uncle  Harmon  B. 
was  looking  round  for  somebody  who  could  give  him 
an  inside  tip  on  the  Eubaw  mine  deal — you  know  the 
Driscolls  are  pretty  deep  in  Eubaw.  I  happened  to  go 
out  there  after  our  little  unpleasantness  at  Apex,  and 
it  was  just  the  time  the  deal  went  through.  So  in  one 
way  your  folks  did  me  a  good  turn  when  they  made 
Apex  too  hot  for  me:  funny  to  think  of,  ain't  it?" 

Undine,  recovering  herself,  held  out  her  hand  im 
pulsively. 

"I'm  real  glad  of  it — I  mean  I'm  real  glad  you've 
had  such  a  stroke  of  luck!" 

"Much  obliged,"  he  returned.  "By  the  way,  you 
might  mention  the  fact  to  Abner  E.  Spragg  next  time 
you  run  across  him." 

"Father'll  be  real  glad  too,  Elmer."  She  hesitated, 
and  then  went  on:  "You  must  see  now  that  it  was 
natural  father  and  mother  should  have  felt  the  way 
they  did " 

"Oh,  the  only  thing  that  struck  me  as  unnatural 
was  their  making  you  feel  so  too.  But  I'm  free  to  admit 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

I  wasn't  a  promising  case  in  those  days."  His  glance 
played  over  her  for  a  moment.  "Say,  Undine — it  was 
good  while  it  lasted,  though,  wasn't  it?" 

She  shrank  back  with  a  burning  face  and  eyes  of 
misery. 

"Why,  what's  the  matter?  That  ruled  out  too?  Oh, 
all  right.  Look  at  here,  Undine,  suppose  you  let  me 
know  what  you  are  here  to  talk  about,  anyhow." 

She  cast  a  helpless  glance  down  the  windings  of  the 
wooded  glen  in  which  they  had  halted. 

"Just  to  ask  you — to  beg  you — not  to  say  anything 
of  this  kind  again — ever " 

"Anything  about  you  and  me?" 

She  nodded  mutely. 

"Why,  what's  wrong?  Anybody  been  saying  any 
thing  against  me?" 

"Oh,  no.  It's  not  that!" 

"What  on  earth  is  it,  then — except  that  you're 
ashamed  of  me,  one  way  or  another?"  She  made  no 
answer,  and  he  stood  digging  the  tip  of  his  walking- 
stick  into  a  fissure  of  the  asphalt.  At  length  he  went  on 
in  a  tone  that  showed  a  first  faint  trace  of  irritation: 
"I  don't  want  to  break  into  your  gilt-edged  crowd,  if 
it's  that  you're  scared  of." 

His  tone  seemed  to  increase  her  distress.  "No,  no — 
you  don't  understand.  All  I  want  is  that  nothing  shall 
be  known." 

"Yes;  but  why?  It  was  all  straight  enough,  if  you 
come  to  that." 

[1131 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"It  doesn't  matter  .  .  .  whether  it  was  straight  .  .  . 
or  ...  not.  .  ."  He  interpolated  a  whistle  which  made 
her  add:  "What  I  mean  is  that  out  here  in  the  East 
they  don't  even  like  it  if  a  girl's  been  engaged  before." 

This  last  strain  on  his  credulity  wrung  a  laugh  from 
Moffatt.  "Gee!  How'd  they  expect  her  fair  young  life 
to  pass?  Playing  'Holy  City'  on  the  melodeon,  and 
knitting  tidies  for  church  fairs?" 

"Girls  are  looked  after  here.  It's  all  different.  Their 
mothers  go  round  with  them." 

This  increased  her  companion's  hilarity  and  he 
glanced  about  him  with  a  pretense  of  compunction. 
"Excuse  me!  I  ought  to  have  remembered.  Where's 
your  chaperon,  Miss  Spragg?"  He  crooked  his  arm 
with  mock  ceremony.  "Allow  me  to  escort  you  to  the 
bew-fay.  You  see  I'm  onto  the  New  York  style  myself." 

A  sigh  of  discouragement  escaped  her.  "Elmer — if 
you  really  believe  I  never  wanted  to  act  mean  to  you, 
don't  you  act  mean  to  me  now!" 

"Act  mean?"  He  grew  serious  again  and  moved 
nearer  to  her.  "What  is  it  you  want,  Undine?  Why 
can't  you  say  it  right  out?" 

"What  I  told  you.  I  don't  want  Ralph  Marvell— 
or  any  of  them — to  know  anything.  If  any  of  his  folks 
found  out,  they'd  never  let  him  marry  me — never!  And 
he  wouldn't  want  to:  he'd  be  so  horrified.  And  it  would 
kill  me,  Elmer — it  would  just  kill  me!" 

She  pressed  close  to  him,  forgetful  of  her  new  re- 
[114] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

serves  and  repugnances,  and  impelled  by  the  passion 
ate  absorbing  desire  to  wring  from  him  some  definite 
pledge  of  safety. 

"Oh,  Elmer,  if  you  ever  liked  me,  help  me  now,  and 
I'll  help  you  if  I  get  the  chance!" 

He  had  recovered  his  coolness  as  hers  forsook  her, 
and  stood  his  ground  steadily,  though  her  entreating 
hands,  her  glowing  face,  were  near  enough  to  have 
shaken  less  sturdy  nerves. 

"That  so,  Puss?  You  just  ask  me  to  pass  the  sponge 
over  Elmer  Moffatt  of  Apex  City?  Cut  the  gentleman 
when  we  meet?  That  the  size  of  it?" 

"Oh,  Elmer,  it's  my  first  chance — I  can't  lose  it!" 
she  broke  out,  sobbing. 

"Nonsense,  child!  Of  course  you  shan't.  Here,  look 
up,  Undine — why,  I  never  saw  you  cry  before.  Don't 
you  be  afraid  of  me — I  ain't  going  to  interrupt  the 
wedding  march."  He  began  to  whistle  a  bar  of  Lohen 
grin.  "I  only  just  want  one  little  promise  in  return." 

She  threw  a  startled  look  at  him  and  he  added  reas 
suringly:  "Oh,  don't  mistake  me.  I  don't  want  to  butt 
into  your  set — not  for  social  purposes,  anyhow;  but  if 
ever  it  should  come  handy  to  know  any  of  'em  in  a 
business  way,  would  you  fix  it  up  for  me — after  you  re 
married?" 

Their  eyes  met,  and  she  remained  silent  for  a 
tremulous  moment  or  two;  then  she  held  out  her  hand. 
"Afterward — yes.  I  promise.  And  you  promise,  Elmer?  " 
[115] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Oh,  to  have  and  to  hold!"  he  sang  out,  swinging 
about  to  follow  her  as  she  hurriedly  began  to  retrace 
her  steps. 

The  March  twilight  had  fallen,  and  the  Stentorian  fa 
cade  was  all  aglow,  when  Undine  regained  its  monu 
mental  threshold.  She  slipped  through  the  marble  ves 
tibule  and  soared  skyward  in  the  mirror-lined  lift, 
hardly  conscious  of  the  direction  she  was  taking.  What 
she  wanted  was  solitude,  and  the  time  to  put  some 
order  into  her  thoughts;  and  she  hoped  to  steal  into 
her  room  without  meeting  her  mother.  Through  her 
thick  veil  the  clusters  of  lights  in  the  Spragg  drawing- 
room  dilated  and  flowed  together  in  a  yellow  blur,  from 
which,  as  she  entered,  a  figure  detached  itself;  and  with 
a  start  of  annoyance  she  saw  Ralph  Marvell  rise  from 
the  perusal  of  the  "fiction  number"  of  a  magazine 
which  had  replaced  "The  Hound  of  the  Baskervilles " 
on  the  onyx  table. 

"Yes;  you  told  me  not  to  come — and  here  I  am." 
He  lifted  her  hand  to  his  lips  as  his  eyes  tried  to  find 
hers  through  the  veil. 

She  drew  back  with  a  nervous  gesture.  "I  told  you 
I'd  be  awfully  late." 

"I  know — trying  on!  And  you're  horribly  tired,  and 
wishing  with  all  your  might  I  wasn't  here." 

"I'm  not  so  sure  I'm  not!"  she  rejoined,  trying  to 
hide  her  vexation  in  a  smile. 
[1161 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"What  a  tragic  little  voice!  You  really  are  done  up. 
I  couldn't  help  dropping  in  for  a  minute;  but  of  course 
if  you  say  so  I'll  be  off."  She  was  removing  her  long 
gloves,  and  he  took  her  hands  and  drew  her  close.  "Only 
take  off  your  veil,  and  let  me  see  you." 

A  quiver  of  resistance  ran  through  her:  he  felt  it  and 
dropped  her  hands. 

"Please  don't  tease.  I  never  could  bear  it,"  she  stam 
mered,  drawing  away. 

"Till  to-morrow,  then;  that  is,  if  the  dress-makers 
permit." 

She  forced  a  laugh.  "If  I  showed  myself  now  you 
might  not  come  back  to-morrow.  I  look  perfectly  hide 
ous — it  was  so  hot  and  they  kept  me  so  long." 

"All  to  make  yourself  more  beautiful  for  a  man  who's 
blind  with  your  beauty  already?" 

The  words  made  her  smile,  and  moving  nearer  she 
bent  her  head  and  stood  still  while  he  undid  her  veil. 
As  he  put  it  back  their  lips  met,  and  his  look  of  pas 
sionate  tenderness  was  incense  to  her. 

But  the  next  moment  his  expression  passed  from 
worship  to  concern.  "Dear!  Why,  what's  the  matter? 
You've  been  crying!" 

She  put  both  hands  to  her  hat  in  the  instinctive  ef 
fort  to  hide  her  face.  His  persistence  was  as  irritating 
as  her  mother's. 

"I  told  you  it  was  frightfully  hot — and  all  my  things 
were  horrid;  and  it  made  me  so  cross  and  nervous!" 
[1171 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

She  turned  to  the  looking-glass  with  a  feint  of  smooth 
ing  her  hair. 

Marvell  laid  his  hand  on  her  arm.  "I  can't  bear  to 
see  you  so  done  up.  Why  can't  we  be  married  to-morrow, 
and  escape  all  these  ridiculous  preparations?  I  shall 
hate  your  fine  clothes  if  they're  going  to  make  you  so 
miserable." 

She  dropped  her  hands,  and  swept  about  on  him, 
her  face  lit  up  by  a  new  idea.  He  was  extraordinarily 
handsome  and  appealing,  and  her  heart  began  to  beat 
faster. 

"I  hate  it  all  too!  I  wish  we  could  be  married  right 
away ! " 

Marvell  caught  her  to  him  joyously.  "Dearest — 
dearest!  Don't,  if  you  don't  mean  it!  The  thought's 
too  glorious!" 

Undine  lingered  in  his  arms,  not  with  any  intent  of 
tenderness,  but  as  if  too  deeply  lost  in  a  new  train  of 
thought  to  be  conscious  of  his  hold. 

"I  suppose  most  of  the  things  could  be  got  ready 
sooner — if  I  said  they  must,"  she  brooded,  with  a  fixed 
gaze  that  travelled  past  him.  "And  the  rest — why 
shouldn't  the  rest  be  sent  over  to  Europe  after  us?  I 
want  to  go  straight  off  with  you,  away  from  everything 
— ever  so  far  away,  where  there'll  be  nobody  but  you 
and  me  alone!"  She  had  a  flash  of  illumination  which 
made  her  turn  her  lips  to  his. 

"Oh,  my  darling — my  darling!"  Marvell  whispered. 
[118] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 


MR.  and  Mrs.  Spragg  were  both  given  to  such 
long  periods  of  ruminating  apathy  that  the 
student  of  inheritance  might  have  wondered  whence 
Undine  derived  her  overflowing  activity.  The  answer 
would  have  been  obtained  by  observing  her  father's 
business  life.  From  the  moment  he  set  foot  in  Wall 
Street  Mr.  Spragg  became  another  man.  Physically  the 
change  revealed  itself  only  by  the  subtlest  signs.  As  he 
steered  his  way  to  his  office  through  the  jostling  crowd 
of  William  Street  his  relaxed  muscles  did  not  grow  more 
taut  or  his  lounging  gait  less  desultory.  His  shoulders 
were  hollowed  by  the  usual  droop,  and  his  rusty  black 
waistcoat  showed  the  same  creased  concavity  at  the 
waist,  the  same  flabby  prominence  below.  It  was  only  in 
his  face  that  the  difference  was  perceptible,  though  even 
h.ere  it  rather  lurked  behind  the  features  than  openly 
modified  them:  showing  itself  now  and  then  in  the  cau 
tious  glint  of  half-closed  eyes,  the  forward  thrust  of 
black  brows,  or  a  tightening  of  the  lax  lines  of  the 
mouth — as  the  gleam  of  a  night-watchman's  light  might 
flash  across  the  darkness  of  a  shuttered  house-front. 

The  shutters  were  more  tightly  barred  than  usual, 

when,  on  a  morning  some  two  weeks  later  than  the  date 

of  the  incidents  last  recorded,  Mr.  Spragg  approached 

the  steel  and  concrete  tower  in  which  his  office  occupied 

[1191 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

a  lofty  pigeon-hole.  Events  had  moved  rapidly  and 
somewhat  surprisingly  in  the  interval,  and  Mr.  Spragg 
had  already  accustomed  himself  to  the  fact  that  his 
daughter  was  to  be  married  within  the  week,  instead 
of  awaiting  the  traditional  post-Lenten  date.  Conven 
tionally  the  change  meant  little  to  him;  but  on  the 
practical  side  it  presented  unforeseen  difficulties.  Mr. 
Spragg  had  learned  within  the  last  weeks  that  a  New 
York  marriage  involved  material  obligations  unknown 
to  Apex.  Marvell,  indeed,  had  been  loftily  careless  of 
such  questions;  but  his  grandfather,  on  the  announce 
ment  of  the  engagement,  had  called  on  Mr.  Spragg  and 
put  before  him,  with  polished  precision,  the  young 
man's  financial  situation. 

Mr.  Spragg,  at  the  moment,  had  been  inclined  to 
deal  with  his  visitor  in  a  spirit  of  indulgent  irony.  As 
he  leaned  back  in  his  revolving  chair,  with  feet  adroitly 
balanced  against  a  tilted  scrap  basket,  his  air  of  re 
laxed  power  made  Mr.  Dagonet's  venerable  elegance 
seem  as  harmless  as  that  of  an  ivory  jack-straw — and 
his  first  replies  to  his  visitor  were  made  with  the  mild 
ness  of  a  kindly  giant. 

"Ralph  don't  make  a  living  out  of  the  law,  you  say? 
No,  it  didn't  strike  me  he'd  be  likely  to,  from  the  talks 
I've  had  with  him.  Fact  is,  the  law's  a  business  that 

wants "  Mr.  Spragg  broke  off,  checked  by  a  protest 

from  Mr.  Dagonet.  "Oh,  a  profession,  you  call  it?  It 

ain't  a  business?"  His  smile  grew  more  indulgent  as 

[1201 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

this  novel  distinction  dawned  on  him.  "Why,  I  guess 
that's  the  whole  trouble  with  Ralph.  Nobody  expects 
to  make  money  in  a  profession;  and  if  you've  taught 
him  to  regard  the  law  that  way,  he'd  better  go  right 
into  cooking-stoves  and  done  with  it." 

Mr.  Dagonet,  within  a  narrower  range,  had  his  own 
play  of  humour;  and  it  met  Mr.  Spragg's  with  a  leap. 
"It's  because  I  knew  he  would  manage  to  make  cook 
ing-stoves  as  unremunerative  as  a  profession  that  I 
saved  him  from  so  glaring  a  failure  by  putting  him 
into  the  law." 

The  retort  drew  a  grunt  of  amusement  from  Mr. 
Spragg;  and  the  eyes  of  the  two  men  met  in  unex 
pected  understanding. 

"That  so?  What  can  he  do,  then?"  the  future  father- 
in-law  enquired. 

"He  can  write  poetry — at  least  he  tells  me  he  can." 
Mr.  Dagonet  hesitated,  as  if  aware  of  the  inadequacy 
of  the  alternative,  and  then  added:  "And  he  can  count 
on  three  thousand  a  year  from  me." 

Mr.  Spragg  tilted  himself  farther  back  without  dis 
turbing  his  subtly-calculated  relation  to  the  scrap 
basket. 

"Does  it  cost  anything  like  that  to  print  his  poetry?" 

Mr.  Dagonet  smiled  again:  he  was  clearly  enjoying 
his  visit.  "Dear,  no — he  doesn't  go  in  for  'luxe'  edi 
tions.  And  now  and  then  he  gets  ten  dollars  from  a 
magazine." 

rmi 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Mr.  Spragg  mused.  "Wasn't  he  ever  taught  to  work?" 

"No;  I  really  couldn't  have  afforded  that." 

"I  see.  Then  they've  got  to  live  on  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  a  month." 

Mr.  Dagonet  remained  pleasantly  unmoved.  "Does 
it  cost  anything  like  that  to  buy  your  daughter's 
dresses?" 

A  subterranean  chuckle  agitated  the  lower  folds  of 
Mr.  Spragg's  waistcoat. 

"I  might  put  him  in  the  way  of  something — I  guess 
he's  smart  enough." 

Mr.  Dagonet  made  a  gesture  of  friendly  warning. 
"It  will  pay  us  both  in  the  end  to  keep  him  out  of 
business,"  he  said,  rising  as  if  to  show  that  his  mission 
was  accomplished. 

The  results  of  this  friendly  conference  had  been  more 
serious  than  Mr.  Spragg  could  have  foreseen — and  the 
victory  remained  with  his  antagonist.  It  had  not  en 
tered  into  Mr.  Spragg's  calculations  that  he  would  have 
to  give  his  daughter  any  fixed  income  on  her  marriage. 
He  meant  that  she  should  have  the  "handsomest" 
wedding  the  New  York  press  had  ever  celebrated,  and 
her  mother's  fancy  was  already  afloat  on  a  sea  of  lux 
uries — a  motor,  a  Fifth  Avenue  house,  and  a  tiara  that 
should  out-blaze  Mrs.  Van  Degen's;  but  these  were 
movable  benefits,  to  be  conferred  whenever  Mr.  Spragg 
happened  to  be  "on  the  right  side"  of  the  market.  It 
was  a  different  matter  to  be  called  on,  at  such  short 
[122] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

notice,  to  bridge  the  gap  between  young  Marvell's  al 
lowance  and  Undine's  requirements;  and  her  father's 
immediate  conclusion  was  that  the  engagement  had 
better  be  broken  off.  Such  scissions  were  almost  pain 
less  in  Apex,  and  he  had  fancied  it  would  be  easy,  by 
an  appeal  to  the  girl's  pride,  to  make  her  see  that  she 
owed  it  to  herself  to  do  better. 

"You'd  better  wait  awhile  and  look  round  again," 
was  the  way  he  had  put  it  to  her  at  the  opening  of  the 
talk  of  which,  even  now,  he  could  not  recall  the  close 
without  a  tremor. 

Undine,  when  she  took  his  meaning,  had  been  ter 
rible.  Everything  had  gone  down  before  her,  as  towns 
and  villages  went  down  before  one  of  the  tornadoes  of 
her  native  state.  Wait  awhile?  Look  round?  Did  he 
suppose  she  was  marrying  for  money?  Didn't  he  see  it 
was  all  a  question,  now  and  here,  of  the  kind  of  people 
she  wanted  to  "go  with"?  Did  he  want  to  throw  her 
straight  back  into  the  Lipscomb  set,  to  have  her  marry 
a  dentist  and  live  in  a  West  Side  flat?  Why  hadn't  they 
stayed  in  Apex,  if  that  was  all  he  thought  she  was  fit 
for?  She  might  as  well  have  married  Millard  Binch,  in 
stead  of  handing  him  over  to  Indiana  Frusk!  Couldn't 
her  father  understand  that  nice  girls,  in  New  York, 
didn't  regard  getting  married  like  going  on  a  buggy- 
ride?  It  was  enough  to  ruin  a  girl's  chances  if  she  broke 
her  engagement  to  a  man  in  Ralph  Marvell's  set.  All  r 
kinds  of  spiteful  things  would  be  said  about  her,  and 
[1*81 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

she  would  never  be  able  to  go  with  the  right  people 
again.  They  had  better  go  back  to  Apex  right  off — it 
was  they  and  not  she  who  had  wanted  to  leave  Apex, 
anyhow — she  could  call  her  mother  to  witness  it.  She 
had  always,  when  it  came  to  that,  done  what  her  father 
and  mother  wanted,  but  she'd  given  up  trying  to  make 
out  what  they  were  after,  unless  it  was  to  make  her  mis 
erable;  and  if  that  was  it,  hadn't  they  had  enough  of  it 
by  this  time?  She  had,  anyhow.  But  after  this  she  meant 
to  lead  her  own  life;  and  they  needn't  ask  her  where 
she  was  going,  or  what  she  meant  to  do,  because  this 
time  she'd  die  before  she  told  them — and  they'd  made 
life  so  hateful  to  her  that  she  only  wished  she  was  dead 
already. 

Mr.  Spragg  heard  her  out  in  silence,  pulling  at  his 
beard  with  one  sallow  wrinkled  hand,  while  the  other 
dragged  down  the  armhole  of  his  waistcoat.  Suddenly 
he  looked  up  and  said:  "Ain't  you  in  love  with  the 
fellow,  Undie?" 

The  girl  glared  back  at  him,  her  splendid  brows 
beetling  like  an  Amazon's.  "Do  you  think  I'd  care  a 
cent  for  all  the  rest  of  it  if  I  wasn't?" 

"Well,  if  you  are,  you  and  he  won't  mind  beginning 
in  a  small  way." 

Her  look  poured  contempt  on  his  ignorance.   "Do 

you  s'pose  I'd  drag  him  down?"  With  a  magnificent 

gesture  she  tore  Marvell's  ring  from  her  finger.  "I'll 

send  this  back  this  minute.  I'll  tell  him  I  thought  he 

[124] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

was  a  rich  man,  and  now  I  see  I'm  mistaken "  She 

burst  into  shattering  sobs,  rocking  her  beautiful  body 
back  and  forward  in  all  the  abandonment  of  young 
grief;  and  her  father  stood  over  her,  stroking  her  shoul 
der  and  saying  helplessly:  "I'll  see  what  I  can  do,  Un 
dine " 

All  his  life,  and  at  ever-diminishing  intervals,  Mr. 
Spragg  had  been  called  on  by  his  womenkind  to  "see 
what  he  could  do";  and  the  seeing  had  almost  always 
resulted  as  they  wished.  Undine  did  not  have  to  send 
back  her  ring,  and  in  her  state  of  trance-like  happiness 
she  hardly  asked  by  what  means  her  path  had  been 
smoothed,  but  merely  accepted  her  mother's  assurance 
that  "father  had  fixed  everything  all  right." 

Mr.  Spragg  accepted  the  situation  also.  A  son-in- 
law  who  expected  to  be  pensioned  like  a  Grand  Army 
veteran  was  a  phenomenon  new  to  his  experience;  but 
if  that  was  what  Undine  wanted  she  should  have  it. 
Only  two  days  later,  however,  he  was  met  by  a  new 
demand — the  young  people  had  decided  to  be  mar 
ried  "right  off,"  instead  of  waiting  till  June.  This 
change  of  plan  was  made  known  to  Mr.  Spragg  at  a 
moment  when  he  was  peculiarly  unprepared  for  the 
financial  readjustment  it  necessitated.  He  had  always 
declared  himself  able  to  cope  with  any  crisis  if  Undine 
and  her  mother  would  "go  steady";  but  he  now  warned 
them  of  his  inability  to  keep  up  with  the  new  pace 
they  had  set. 

[125] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine,  not  deigning  to  return  to  the  charge,  had 
commissioned  her  mother  to  speak  for  her;  and  Mr. 
Spragg  was  surprised  to  meet  in  his  wife  a  firmness  as 
inflexible  as  his  daughter's. 

"I  can't  do  it,  Loot — can't  put  my  hand  on  the  cash," 
he  had  protested;  but  Mrs.  Spragg  fought  him  inch  by 
inch,  her  back  to  the  wall — flinging  out  at  last,  as  he 
pressed  her  closer:  "Well,  if  you  want  to  know,  she's 
seen  Elmer." 

The  bolt  reached  its  mark,  and  her  husband  turned 
an  agitated  face  on  her. 

"Elmer?  What  on  earth — he  didn't  come  here?" 

"No;  but  he  sat  next  to  her  the  other  night  at  the 
theatre,  and  she's  wild  with  us  for  not  having  warned 
her." 

Mr.  Spragg's  scowl  drew  his  projecting  brows  to 
gether.  "Warned  her  of  what?  What's  Elmer  to  her? 
Why's  she  afraid  of  Elmer  Moffatt?" 

"She's  afraid  of  his  talking." 

"Talking?  What  on  earth  can  he  say  that'll  hurt 
her?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  Mrs.  Spragg  wailed.  "She's  so 
nervous  I  can  hardly  get  a  word  out  of  her." 

Mr.  Spragg's  whitening  face  showed  the  touch  of  a 
new  fear.  "Is  she  afraid  he'll  get  round  her  again — 
make  up  to  her?  Is  that  what  she  means  by  *  talking'?" 

"I  don't  know,  I  don't  know.  I  only  know  she  is 
afraid — she's  afraid  as  death  of  him." 
[126] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

For  a  long  interval  they  sat  silently  looking  at  each 
other  while  their  heavy  eyes  exchanged  conjectures: 
then  Mr.  Spragg  rose  from  his  chair,  saying,  as  he  took 
up  his  hat:  "Don't  you  fret,  Leota;  I'll  see  what  I 
can  do." 

He  had  been  "seeing"  now  for  an  arduous  fortnight; 
and  the  strain  on  his  vision  had  resulted  in  a  state 
of  tension  such  as  he  had  not  undergone  since  the  epic 
days  of  the  Pure  Water  Move  at  Apex.  It  was  not  his 
habit  to  impart  his  fears  to  Mrs.  Spragg  and  Undine, 
and  they  continued  the  bridal  preparations,  secure  in 
their  invariable  experience  that,  once  "father"  had 
been  convinced  of  the  impossibility  of  evading  their 
demands,  he  might  be  trusted  to  satisfy  them  by  means 
with  which  his  womenkind  need  not  concern  them 
selves.  Mr.  Spragg,  as  he  approached  his  office  on  the 
morning  in  question,  felt  reasonably  sure  of  fulfilling 
these  expectations;  but  he  reflected  that  a  few  more 
such  victories  would  mean  disaster. 

He  entered  the  vast  marble  vestibule  of  the  Ararat 
Trust  Building  and  walked  toward  the  express  elevator 
that  was  to  carry  him  up  to  his  office.  At  the  door 
of  the  elevator  a  man  turned  to  him,  and  he  recog 
nized  Elmer  Moffatt,  who  put  out  his  hand  with  an 
easy  gesture. 

Mr.  Spragg  did  not  ignore  the  gesture:  he  did  not 
even  withhold  his  hand.  In  his  code  the  cut,  as  a  con 
scious  sign  of  disapproval,  did  not  exist.  In  the  south, 
[127] 


THE   CUSTOM   OF  THE   COUNTRY 

if  you  had  a  grudge  against  a  man  you  tried  to  shoot 
him;  in  the  west,  you  tried  to  do  him  in  a  mean  turn 
in  business;  but  in  neither  region  was  the  cut  among 
the  social  weapons  of  offense.  Mr.  Spragg,  therefore, 
seeing  Moffatt  in  his  path,  extended  a  lifeless  hand 
while  he  faced  the  young  man  scowlingly.  Moffatt  met 
the  hand  and  the  scowl  with  equal  coolness. 

"Going  up  to  your  office?  I  was  on  my  way  there." 

The  elevator  door  rolled  back,  and  Mr.  Spragg,  en 
tering  it,  found  his  companion  at  his  side.  They  re 
mained  silent  during  the  ascent  to  Mr.  Spragg's  thresh 
old;  but  there  the  latter  turned  to  enquire  ironically 
of  Moffatt:  "Anything  left  to  say?" 

Moffatt  smiled.  "Nothing  left — no;  I'm  carrying  a 
whole  new  line  of  goods." 

Mr.  Spragg  pondered  the  reply;  then  he  opened  the 
door  and  suffered  Moffatt  to  follow  him  in.  Behind  an 
inner  glazed  enclosure,  with  its  one  window  dimmed  by 
a  sooty  perspective  barred  with  chimneys,  he  seated 
himself  at  a  dusty  littered  desk,  and  groped  instinc 
tively  for  the  support  of  the  scrap  basket.  Moffatt,  un 
invited,  dropped  into  the  nearest  chair,  and  Mr.  Spragg 
said,  after  another  silence:  "I'm  pretty  busy  this  morn 
ing." 

"I  know  you  are:  that's  why  I'm  here,"  Moffatt 
serenely  answered.  He  leaned  back,  crossing  his  legs, 
and  twisting  his  small  stiff  moustache  with  a  plump 
hand  adorned  by  a  cameo. 

"Fact  is,"  he  went  on,  "this  is  a  coals-of-fire  call. 
[128] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

You  think  I  owe  you  a  grudge,  and  I'm  going  to  show 
you  I'm  not  that  kind.  I'm  going  to  put  you  onto  a 
good  thing — oh,  not  because  I'm  so  fond  of  you;  just 
because  it  happens  to  hit  my  sense  of  a  joke." 

While  Moffatt  talked  Mr.  Spragg  took  up  the  pile 
of  letters  on  his  desk  and  sat  shuffling  them  like  a  pack 
of  cards.  He  dealt  them  deliberately  to  two  imaginary 
players;  then  he  pushed  them  aside  and  drew  out  his 
watch. 

"All  right — I  carry  one  too,"  said  the  young  man 
easily.  "But  you'll  find  it's  time  gained  to  hear  what 
I've  got  to  say." 

Mr.  Spragg  considered  the  vista  of  chimneys  without 
speaking,  and  Moffatt  continued:  "I  don't  suppose  you 
care  to  hear  the  story  of  my  life,  so  I  won't  refer  you 
to  the  back  numbers.  You  used  to  say  out  in  Apex 
that  I  spent  too  much  time  loafing  round  the  bar  of 
the  Mealey  House;  that  was  one  of  the  things  you  had 
against  me.  Well,  maybe  I  did — but  it  taught  me  to 
talk,  and  to  listen  to  the  other  fellows  too.  Just  at 
present  I'm  one  of  Harmon  B.  DriscolPs  private  secre 
taries,  and  some  of  that  Mealey  House  loafing  has  come 
in  more  useful  than  any  job  I  ever  put  my  hand  to.  The 
old  man  happened  to  hear  I  knew  something  about  the 
inside  of  the  Eubaw  deal,  and  took  me  on  to  have  the 
information  where  he  could  get  at  it.  I've  given  him 
good  talk  for  his  money;  but  I've  done  some  listening 
too.  Eubaw  ain't  the  only  commodity  the  Driscolls 
deal  in." 

[129] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Mr.  Spragg  restored  his  watch  to  his  pocket  and 
shifted  his  drowsy  gaze  from  the  window  to  his  visitor's 
face. 

"Yes,"  said  Moffatt,  as  if  in  reply  to  the  movement, 
"the  Driscolls  are  getting  busy  out  in  Apex.  Now 
they've  got  all  the  street  railroads  in  their  pocket  they 
want  the  water-supply  too — but  you  know  that  as  well 
as  I  do.  Fact  is,  they've  got  to  have  it;  and  there's 
where  you  and  I  come  in." 

Mr.  Spragg  thrust  his  hands  in  his  waistcoat  arm- 
holes  and  turned  his  eyes  back  to  the  window. 

"I'm  out  of  that  long  ago,"  he  said  indifferently. 

"Sure,"  Moffatt  acquiesced;  "but  you  know  what 
went  on  when  you  were  in  it." 

"Well?"  said  Mr.  Spragg,  shifting  one  hand  to  the 
Masonic  emblem  on  his  watch-chain. 

"Well,  Representative  James  J.  Rolliver,  who  was 
in  it  with  you,  ain't  out  of  it  yet.  He's  the  man  the 
Driscolls  are  up  against.  What  d'you  know  about  him?  " 

Mr.  Spragg  twirled  the  emblem  thoughtfully.  "  Dris- 
coll  tell  you  to  come  here?" 

Moffatt  laughed.  "No,  sir — not  by  a  good  many 
miles." 

Mr.  Spragg  removed  his  feet  from  the  scrap  basket 
and  straightened  himself  in  his  chair. 

"Well — I  didn't  either;  good  morning,  Mr.  Moffatt." 

The  young  man  stared  a  moment,  a  humorous  glint 
in  his  small  black  eyes;  but  he  made  no  motion  to  leave 
his  seat. 

[130] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Undine's  to  be  married  next  week,  isn't  she?"  he 
asked  in  a  conversational  tone. 

Mr.  Spragg's  face  blackened  and  he  swung  about  in 
his  revolving  chair. 

"You  go  to " 

Moffatt  raised  a  deprecating  hand.  "  Oh,  you  needn't 
warn  me  off.  I  don't  want  to  be  invited  to  the  wed 
ding.  And  I  don't  want  to  forbid  the  banns." 

There  was  a  derisive  sound  in  Mr.  Spragg's  throat. 

"But  I  do  want  to  get  out  of  Driscoll's  office,"  Mof 
fatt  imperturbably  continued.  "There's  no  future  there 
for  a  fellow  like  me.  I  see  things  big.  That's  the  reason 
Apex  was  too  tight  a  fit  for  me.  It's  only  the  little  fel 
lows  that  succeed  in  little  places.  New  York's  my  size 
— without  a  single  alteration.  I  could  prove  it  to  you 
to-morrow  if  I  could  put  my  hand  on  fifty  thousand 
dollars." 

Mr.  Spragg  did  not  repeat  his  gesture  of  dismissal: 
he  was  once  more  listening  guardedly  but  intently. 
Moffatt  saw  it  and  continued. 

"And  I  could  put  my  hand  on  double  that  sum — 
yes,  sir,  double — if  you'd  just  step  round  with  me  to 
old  Driscoll's  office  before  five  p.  M.  See  the  connec 
tion,  Mr.  Spragg?" 

The  older  man  remained  silent  while  his  visitor 
hummed  a  bar  or  two  of  "In  the  Gloaming";  then  he 
said:  "You  want  me  to  tell  Driscoll  what  I  know  about 
James  J.  Rolliver?" 

"I  want  you  to  tell  the  truth — I  want  you  to  stand 
F  131  1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

for  political  purity  in  your  native  state.  A  man  of  your 
prominence  owes  it  to  the  community,  sir,"  cried  Mof- 
fatt. 

Mr.  Spragg  was  still  tormenting  his  Masonic  emblem. 

"Rolliver  and  I  always  stood  together,"  he  said  at 
last,  with  a  tinge  of  reluctance. 

"Well,  how  much  have  you  made  out  of  it?  Ain't 
he  always  been  ahead  of  the  game?" 

"I  can't  do  it — I  can't  do  it,"  said  Mr.  Spragg, 
bringing  his  clenched  hand  down  on  the  desk,  as  if 
addressing  an  invisible  throng  of  assailants. 

Moffatt  rose  without  any  evidence  of  disappointment 
in  his  ruddy  countenance.  "Well,  so  long,"  he  said, 
moving  toward  the  door.  Near  the  threshold  he  paused 
to  add  carelessly:  "Excuse  my  referring  to  a  personal 
matter — but  I  understand  Miss  Spragg's  wedding  takes 
place  next  Monday." 

Mr.  Spragg  was  silent. 

"How's  that?"  Moffatt  continued  unabashed.  "I 
saw  in  the  papers  the  date  was  set  for  the  end  of  June." 

Mr.  Spragg  rose  heavily  from  his  seat.  "I  presume 
my  daughter  has  her  reasons,"  he  said,  moving  toward 
the  door  in  Moffatt's  wake. 

"I  guess  she  has — same  as  I  have  for  wanting  you 
to  step  round  with  me  to  old  Driscoll's.  If  Undine's 
reasons  are  as  good  as  mine — 

"Stop  right  here,  Elmer  Moffatt!"  the  older  man 
broke  out  with  lifted  hand. 

Moffatt  made  a  burlesque  feint  of  evading  a  blow; 
F  132  1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

then  his  face  grew  serious,  and  he  moved  close  to  Mr. 
Spragg,  whose  arm  had  fallen  to  his  side. 

"See  here,  I  knowT  Undine's  reasons.  I've  had  a  talk 
with  her — didn't  she  tell  you?  She  don't  beat  about  the 
bush  the  way  you  do.  She  told  me  straight  out  what 
was  bothering  her.  She  wants  the  Marvells  to  think 
she's  right  out  of  Kindergarten.  'No  goods  sent  out  on 
approval  from  this  counter/  And  I  see  her  point — / 
don't  mean  to  publish  my  meemo'rs.  Only  a  deal's  a 
deal."  He  paused  a  moment,  twisting  his  fingers  about 
the  heavy  gold  watch-chain  that  crossed  his  waistcoat. 
"Tell  you  what,  Mr.  Spragg,  I  don't  bear  malice — not 
against  Undine,  anyway — and  if  I  could  have  afforded 
it  I'd  have  been  glad  enough  to  oblige  her  and  forget 
old  times.  But  you  didn't  hesitate  to  kick  me  when  I 
was  down  and  it's  taken  me  a  day  or  two  to  get  on  my 
legs  again  after  that  kicking.  I  see  my  wray  now  to  get 
there  and  keep  there;  and  there's  a  kinder  poetic  jus 
tice  in  your  being  the  man  to  help  me  up.  If  I  can  get 
hold  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  within  a  day  or  so  I  don't 
care  who's  got  the  start  of  me.  I've  got  a  dead  sure  thing 
in  sight,  and  you're  the  only  man  that  can  get  it  for 
me.  Now  do  you  see  where  we're  coming  out?" 

Mr.  Spragg,  during  this  discourse,  had  remained  mo 
tionless,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  jaws  moving  me 
chanically,  as  though  he  mumbled  a  tooth-pick  under 
his  beard.  His  sallow  cheek  had  turned  a  shade  paler, 
and  his  brows  hung  threateningly  over  his  half-closed 
[133] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

eyes.  But  there  was  no  threat — there  was  scarcely  more 
than  a  note  of  dull  curiosity — in  the  voice  with  which 
he  said:  "You  mean  to  talk?" 

Moffatt's  rosy  face  grew  as  hard  as  a  steel  safe.  "I 
mean  you  to  talk — to  old  Driscoll."  He  paused,  and 
then  added:  "It's  a  hundred  thousand  down,  between 
us." 

Mr.  Spragg  once  more  consulted  his  watch.  "I'll  see 
you  again,"  he  said  with  an  effort. 

Moffatt  struck  one  fist  against  the  other.  "No,  sir — 
you  won't!  You'll  only  hear  from  me — through  the 
Marvell  family.  Your  news  ain't  worth  a  dollar  to 
Driscoll  if  he  don't  get  it  to-day." 

He  was  checked  by  the  sound  of  steps  in  the  outer 
office,  and  Mr.  Spragg's  stenographer  appeared  in  the 
doorway. 

"It's  Mr.  Marvell,"  she  announced;  and  Ralph  Mar 
vell,  glowing  with  haste  and  happiness,  stood  between 
the  two  men,  holding  out  his  hand  to  Mr.  Spragg. 

"Am  I  awfully  in  the  way,  sir?  Turn  me  out  if  I  am 
—but  first  let  me  just  say  a  word  about  this  necklace 
I've  ordered  for  Un — 

He  broke  off,  made  aware  by  Mr.  Spragg's  glance  of 
the  presence  of  Elmer  Moffatt,  who,  with  unwonted 
discretion,  had  dropped  back  into  the  shadow  of  the  door. 

Marvell  turned  on  Moffatt  a  bright  gaze  full  of  the 
instinctive  hospitality  of  youth;  but  Moffatt  looked 
straight  past  him  at  Mr.  Spragg. 
[1341 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  latter,  as  if  in  response  to  an  imperceptible 
signal,  mechanically  pronounced  his  visitor's  name;  and 
the  two  young  men  moved  toward  each  other. 

"I  beg  your  pardon  most  awfully — am  I  breaking 
up  an  important  conference?"  Ralph  asked  as  he  shook 
hands. 

"Why,  no — I  guess  we're  pretty  nearly  through.  I'll 
step  outside  and  woo  the  blonde  while  you're  talking," 
Moffatt  rejoined  in  the  same  key. 

"Thanks  so  much — I  shan't  take  two  seconds." 
Ralph  broke  off  to  scrutinize  him.  "But  haven't 
we  met  before?  It  seems  to  me  I've  seen  you — just 
lately " 

Moffatt  seemed  about  to  answer,  but  his  reply  was 
checked  by  an  abrupt  movement  on  the  part  of  Mr. 
Spragg.  There  was  a  perceptible  pause,  during  which 
Moffatt's  bright  black  glance  rested  questioningly  on 
Ralph;  then  he  looked  again  at  the  older  man,  and 
their  eyes  held  each  other  for  a  silent  moment. 

"Why,  no — not  as  I'm  aware  of,  Mr.  Marvell," 
Moffatt  said,  addressing  himself  amicably  to  Ralph. 
"Better  late  than  never,  though — and  I  hope  to  have 
the  pleasure  soon  again." 

He  divided  a  nod  between  the  two  men,  and  passed 
into  the  outer  office,  where  they  heard  him  address 
ing  the  stenographer  in  a  strain  of  exaggerated  gal 
lantry. 


135 


BOOK  II 


XI 


THE  July  sun  enclosed  in  a  ring  of  fire  the  ilex 
grove  of  a  villa  in  the  hills  near  Siena. 

Below,  by  the  roadside,  the  long  yellow  house  seemed 
to  waver  and  palpitate  in  the  glare;  but  steep  by  steep, 
behind  it,  the  cool  ilex-dusk  mounted  to  the  ledge 
where  Ralph  Mar  veil,  stretched  on  his  back  in  the 
grass,  lay  gazing  up  at  a  black  reticulation  of  branches 
between  which  bits  of  sky  gleamed  with  the  hardness 
and  brilliancy  of  blue  enamel. 

Up  there  too  the  air  was  thick  with  heat;  but  com 
pared  with  the  white  fire  below  it  was  a  dim  and  tem 
pered  warmth,  like  that  of  the  churches  in  which  he 
and  Undine  sometimes  took  refuge  at  the  height  of 
the  torrid  days. 

Ralph  loved  the  heavy  Italian  summer,  as  he  had 
loved  the  light  spring  days  leading  up  to  it:  the  long 
line  of  dancing  days  that  had  drawn  them  on  and  on 
ever  since  they  had  left  their  ship  at  Naples  four 
months  earlier.  Four  months  of  beauty,  changeful,  in 
exhaustible,  weaving  itself  about  him  in  shapes  of  soft 
ness  and  strength;  and  beside  him,  hand  in  hand  with 
him,  embodying  that  spirit  of  shifting  magic,  the  ra 
diant  creature  through  whose  eyes  he  saw  it.  This  was 
[1391 


THE  CUSTOM, OF  THE  COUNTRY 

what  their  hastened  marriage  had  blessed  them  with, 
giving  them  leisure,  before  summer  came,  to  penetrate 
to  remote  folds  of  the  southern  mountains,  to  linger 
in  the  shade  of  Sicilian  orange-groves,  and  finally, 
travelling  by  slow  stages  to  the  Adriatic,  to  reach  the 
central  hill-country  where  even  in  July  they  might  hope 
for  a  breathable  air. 

To  Ralph  the  Sienese  air  was  not  only  breathable 
but  intoxicating.  The  sun,  treading  the  earth  like  a 
vintager,  drew  from  it  heady  fragrances,  crushed  out 
of  it  new  colours.  All  the  values  of  the  temperate  land 
scape  were  reversed:  the  noon  high-lights  were  white, 
but  the  shadows  had  unimagined  colour.  On  the  black 
ness  of  cork  and  ilex  and  cypress  lay  the  green  and 
purple  lustres,  the  coppery  iridescences,  of  old  bronze; 
and  night  after  night  the  skies  were  wine-blue  and 
bubbling  with  stars.  Ralph  said  to  himself  that  no  one 
who  had  not  seen  Italy  thus  prostrate  beneath  the  sun 
knew  what  secret  treasures  she  could  yield. 

As  he  lay  there,  fragments  of  past  states  of  emotion, 
fugitive  felicities  of  thought  and  sensation,  rose  and 
floated  on  the  surface  of  his  thoughts.  It  was  one  of 
those  moments  when  the  accumulated  impressions  of 
life  converge  on  heart  and  brain,  elucidating,  enlacing 
each  other,  in  a  mysterious  confusion  of  beauty.  He 
had  had  glimpses  of  such  a  state  before,  of  such 
mergings  of  the  personal  with  the  general  life  that 
one  felt  one's  self  a  mere  wave  on  the  wild  stream  of 
[1401 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

being,  yet  thrilled  with  a  sharper  sense  of  individuality 
than  can  be  known  within  the  mere  bounds  of  the  act 
ual.  But  now  he  knew  the  sensation  in  its  fulness,  and 
with  it  came  the  releasing  power  of  language.  Words 
were  flashing  like  brilliant  birds  through  the  boughs 
overhead;  he  had  but  to  wave  his  magic  wand  to  have 
them  flutter  down  to  him.  Only  they  were  so  beauti 
ful  up  there,  weaving  their  fantastic  flights  against  the 
blue,  that  it  was  pleasanter,  for  the  moment,  to  watch 
them  and  let  the  wand  lie. 

He  stared  up  at  the  pattern  they  made  till  his  eyes 
ached  with  excess  of  light;  then  he  changed  his  posi 
tion  and  looked  at  his  wife. 

Undine,  near  by,  leaned  against  a  gnarled  tree 
with  the  slightly  constrained  air  of  a  person  unused  to 
sylvan  abandonments.  Her  beautiful  back  could  not 
adapt  itself  to  the  irregularities  of  the  tree-trunk,  and 
she  moved  a  little  now  and  then  in  the  effort  to  find 
an  easier  position.  But  her  expression  was  serene,  and 
Ralph,  looking  up  at  her  through  drowsy  lids,  thought 
her  face  had  never  been  more  exquisite. 

"You  look  as  cool  as  a  wave,"  he  said,  reaching  out 
for  the  hand  on  her  knee.  She  let  him  have  it,  and  he 
drew  it  closer,  scrutinizing  it  as  if  it  had  been  a  bit  of 
precious  porcelain  or  ivory.  It  was  small  and  soft,  a 
mere  featherweight,  a  puff-ball  of  a  hand — not  quick 
and  thrilling,  not  a  speaking  hand,  but  one  to  be  fon 
dled  and  dressed  in  rings,  and  to  leave  a  rosy  blur  in 
the  brain.  The  fingers  were  short  and  tapering,  dim- 
[1411 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

pled  at  the  base,  with  nails  as  smooth  as  rose-leaves. 
Ralph  lifted  them  one  by  one,  like  a  child  playing  with 
piano-keys,  but  they  were  inelastic  and  did  not  spring 
back  far — only  far  enough  to  show  the  dimples. 

He  turned  the  hand  over  and  traced  the  course  of 
its  blue  veins  from  the  wrist  to  the  rounding  of  the 
palm  below  the  fingers;  then  he  put  a  kiss  in  the  warm 
hollow  between.  The  upper  world  had  vanished:  his 
universe  had  shrunk  to  the  palm  of  a  hand.  But  there 
was  no  sense  of  diminution.  In  the  mystic  depths  whence 
his  passion  sprang,  earthly  dimensions  were  ignored  and 
the  curve  of  beauty  was  boundless  enough  to  hold  what 
ever  the  imagination  could  pour  into  it.  Ralph  had 
never  felt  more  convinced  of  his  power  to  write  a  great 
poem;  but  now  it  was  Undine's  hand  which  held  the 
magic  wand  of  expression. 

She  stirred  again  uneasily,  answering  his  last  words 
with  a  faint  accent  of  reproach. 

"  I  don't  feel  cool.  You  said  there'd  be  a  breeze  up 
here." 

He  laughed. 

"You  poor  darling!  Wasn't  it  ever  as  hot  as  this  in 
Apex?" 

She  withdrew  her  hand  with  a  slight  grimace. 

"Yes — but  I  didn't  marry  you  to  go  back  to  Apex!" 

Ralph  laughed  again;  then  he  lifted  himself  on  his 
elbow  and  regained  the  hand.  "I  wonder  what  you  did 
marry  me  for?" 

"Mercy!  It's  too  hot  for  conundrums."  She  spoke 
[142] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

without  impatience,  but  with  a  lassitude  less  joyous 
than  his. 

He  roused  himself.  "Do  you  really  mind  the  heat  so 
much?  We'll  go,  if  you  do." 

She  sat  up  eagerly.  "Go  to  Switzerland,  you  mean?" 

"Well,  I  hadn't  taken  quite  as  long  a  leap.  I  only 
meant  we  might  drive  back  to  Siena." 

She  relapsed  listlessly  against  her  tree- trunk.  "Oh, 
Siena's  hotter  than  this." 

"We  could  go  and  sit  in  the  cathedral — it's  always 
cool  there  at  sunset." 

"WVve  sat  in  the  cathedral  at  sunset  every  day  for 
a  week." 

"Well,  what  do  you  say  to  stopping  at  Lecceto  on 
the  way?  I  haven't  shown  you  Lecceto  yet;  and  the 
drive  back  by  moonlight  would  be  glorious." 

This  woke  her  to  a  slight  show  of  interest.  "  It  might 
be  nice — but  where  could  we  get  anything  to  eat?" 

Ralph  laughed  again.  "I  don't  believe  we  could. 
You're  too  practical." 

"Well,  somebody's  got  to  be.  And  the  food  in  the 
hotel  is  too  disgusting  if  we're  not  on  time." 

"I  admit  that  the  best  of  it  has  usually  been  appro 
priated  by  the  extremely  good-looking  cavalry-officer 
who's  so  keen  to  know  you." 

Undine's  face  brightened.   "You  know  he's  not  a 

Count;  he's  a  Marquis.  His  name's  Roviano;  his  palace 

in  Rome  is  in  the  guide-books,  and  he  speaks  English 

beautifully.  Celeste  found  out  about  him  from  the  head- 

[1431 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

waiter,"  she  said,  with  the  security  of  one  who  treats 
of  recognized  values. 

Marvell,  sitting  upright,  reached  lazily  across  the 
grass  for  his  hat.  "Then  there's  all  the  more  reason  for 
rushing  back  to  defend  our  share."  He  spoke  in  the  ban 
tering  tone  which  had  become  the  habitual  expression 
of  his  tenderness;  but  his  eyes  softened  as  they  absorbed 
in  a  last  glance  the  glimmering  submarine  light  of  the 
ancient  grove,  through  which  Undine's  figure  wavered 
nereid-like  above  him. 

"You  never  looked  your  name  more  than  you  do 
now,"  he  said,  kneeling  at  her  side  and  putting  his 
arm  about  her.  She  smiled  back  a  little  vaguely,  as  if 
not  seizing  his  allusion,  and  being  content  to  let  it 
drop  into  the  store  of  unexplained  references  which  had 
once  stimulated  her  curiosity  but  now  merely  gave  her 
leisure  to  think  of  other  things.  But  her  smile  was  no 
less  lovely  for  its  vagueness,  and  indeed,  to  Ralph,  the 
loveliness  was  enhanced  by  the  latent  doubt.  He  re 
membered  afterward  that  at  that  moment  the  cup  of 
life  seemed  to  brim  over. 

"Come,  dear — here  or  there — it's  all  divine!" 

In  the  carriage,  however,  she  remained  insensible  to 
the  soft  spell  of  the  evening,  noticing  only  the  heat  and 
dust,  and  saying,  as  they  passed  under  the  wooded 
cliff  of  Lecceto,  that  they  might  as  well  have  stopped 
there  after  all,  since  with  such  a  headache  as  she  felt 
coming  on  she  didn't  care  if  she  dined  or  not. 

Ralph  looked  up  yearningly  at  the  long  walls  over- 
[144] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

head;  but  Undine's  mood  was  hardly  favourable  to 
communion  with  such  scenes,  and  he  made  no  attempt 
to  stop  the  carriage.  Instead  he  presently  said:  "If 
you're  tired  of  Italy,  we've  got  the  world  to  choose 
from."  I.;.  . 

She  did  not  speak  for  a  moment;  then  she  said:  "It's 
the  heat  I'm  tired  of.  Don't  people  generally  come  here 
earlier?" 

"Yes.  That's  why  I  chose  the  summer:  so  that  we 
could  have  it  all  to  ourselves." 

She  tried  to  put  a  note  of  reasonableness  into  her 
voice.  "If  you'd  told  me  we  were  going  everywhere  at 
the  wrong  time,  of  course  I  could  have  arranged  about 
my  clothes." 

"You  poor  darling!  Let  us,  by  all  means,  go  to  the 
place  where  the  clothes  will  be  right:  they're  too  beau 
tiful  to  be  left  out  of  our  scheme  of  life." 

Her  lips  hardened.  "I  know  you  don't  care  how  I 
look.  But  you  didn't  give  me  time  to  order  anything 
before  we  were  married,  and  I've  got  nothing  but  my 
last  winter's  things  to  wear." 

Ralph  smiled.  Even  his  subjugated  mind  perceived 
the  inconsistency  of  Undine's  taxing  him  with  having 
hastened  their  marriage;  but  her  variations  on  the  eter 
nal  feminine  still  enchanted  him. 

"We'll  go  wherever  you  please — you  make  every 
place  the  one  place,"  he  said,  as  if  he  were  humouring 
an  irresistible  child. 

[145] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"To  Switzerland,  then?  Celeste  says  St.  Moritz  is 
too  heavenly,"  exclaimed  Undine,  who  gathered  her 
ideas  of  Europe  chiefly  from  the  conversation  of  her 
experienced  attendant. 

"One  can  be  cool  short  of  the  Engadine.  Why  not  go 
south  again — say  to  Capri?" 

"Capri?  Is  that  the  island  we  saw  from  Naples,  where 
the  artists  go? "  She  drew  her  brows  together.  "It  would 
be  simply  awful  getting  there  in  this  heat." 

"Well,  then,  I  know  a  little  place  in  Switzerland 
where  one  can  still  get  away  from  the  crowd,  and  we 
can  sit  and  look  at  a  green  water-fall  while  I  lie  in  wait 
for  adjectives." 

Mr.  Spragg's  astonishment  on  learning  that  his  son- 
in-law  contemplated  maintaining  a  household  on  the 
earnings  of  his  Muse  was  still  matter  for  pleasantry  be 
tween  the  pair;  and  one  of  the  humours  of  their  first 
weeks  together  had  consisted  in  picturing  themselves  as 
a  primeval  couple  setting  forth  across  a  virgin  continent 
and  subsisting  on  the  adjectives  which  Ralph  was  to 
trap  for  his  epic.  On  this  occasion,  however,  his  wife 
did  not  take  up  the  joke,  and  he  remained  silent  while 
their  carriage  climbed  the  long  dusty  hill  to  the  Fonte- 
branda  gate.  He  had  seen  her  face  droop  as  he  suggested 
the  possibility  of  an  escape  from  the  crowds  in  Switzer 
land,  and  it  came  to  him,  with  the  sharpness  of  a  knife- 
thrust,  that  a  crowd  was  what  she  wanted — that  she 
was  sick  to  death  of  being  alone  with  him. 
[146] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

He  sat  motionless,  staring  ahead  at  the  red-brown 
walls  and  towers  on  the  steep  above  them.  After  all 
there  was  nothing  sudden  in  his  discovery.  For  weeks 
it  had  hung  on  the  edge  of  consciousness,  but  he  had 
turned  from  it  with  the  heart's  instinctive  clinging  to 
the  unrealities  by  which  it  lives.  Even  now  a  hundred 
qualifying  reasons  rushed  to  his  aid.  They  told  him  it 
was  not  of  himself  that  Undine  had  wearied,  but  only 
of  their  present  way  of  life.  He  had  said  a  moment  be 
fore,  without  conscious  exaggeration,  that  her  presence 
made  any  place  the  one  place;  yet  how  willingly 
would  he  have  consented  to  share  in  such  a  life  as  she 
was  leading  before  their  marriage?  And  he  had  to  ac 
knowledge  their  months  of  desultory  wandering  from 
one  remote  Italian  hill- top  to  another  must  have  seemed 
as  purposeless  to  her  as  balls  and  dinners  would  have 
been  to  him.  An  imagination  like  his,  peopled  with  such 
varied  images  and  associations,  fed  by  so  many  cur 
rents  from  the  long  stream  of  human  experience,  could 
hardly  picture  the  bareness  of  the  small  half-lit  place 
in  which  his  wife's  spirit  fluttered.  Her  mind  was  as 
destitute  of  beauty  and  mystery  as  the  prairie  school- 
house  in  which  she  had  been  educated;  and  her  ideals 
seemed  to  Ralph  as  pathetic  as  the  ornaments  made 
of  corks  and  cigar-bands  with  which  her  infant  hands 
had  been  taught  to  adorn  it.  He  was  beginning  to  un 
derstand  this,  and  learning  to  adapt  himself  to  the 
narrow  compass  of  her  experience.  The  task  of  opening 
[1471 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

new  windows  in  her  mind  was  inspiring  enough  to  give 
him  infinite  patience;  and  he  would  not  yet  own  to 
himself  that  her  pliancy  and  variety  were  imitative 
rather  than  spontaneous. 

Meanwhile  he  had  no  desire  to  sacrifice  her  wishes 
to  his,  and  it  distressed  him  that  he  dared  not  confess 
his  real  reason  for  avoiding  the  Engadine.  The  truth 
was  that  their  funds  were  shrinking  faster  than  he  had 
expected.  Mr.  Spragg,  after  bluntly  opposing  their 
hastened  marriage  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not 
prepared,  at  such  short  notice,  to  make  the  necessary 
provision  for  his  daughter,  had  shortly  afterward  (prob 
ably,  as  Undine  observed  to  Ralph,  in  consequence  of 
a  lucky  "turn"  in  the  Street)  met  their  wishes  with 
all  possible  liberality,  bestowing  on  them  a  wedding 
in  conformity  with  Mrs.  Spragg's  ideals  and  up  to  the 
highest  standard  of  Mrs.  Heeny's  clippings,  and  pledg 
ing  himself  to  provide  Undine  with  an  income  adequate 
to  so  brilliant  a  beginning.  It  was  understood  that 
Ralph,  on  their  return,  should  renounce  the  law  for 
some  more  paying  business;  but  this  seemed  the  small 
est  of  sacrifices  to  make  for  the  privilege  of  calling 
Undine  his  wife;  and  besides,  he  still  secretly  hoped 
that,  in  the  interval,  his  real  vocation  might  declare 
itself  in  some  work  which  would  justify  his  adopt 
ing  the  life  of  letters. 

He  had  assumed  that  Undine's  allowance,  with  the 
addition  of  his  own  small  income,  would  be  enough 
F  148  1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

to  satisfy  their  needs.  His  own  were  few,  and  had  al 
ways  been  within  his  means;  but  his  wife's  daily  re 
quirements,  combined  with  her  intermittent  outbreaks 
of  extravagance,  had  thrown  out  all  his  calculations, 
and  they  were  already  seriously  exceeding  their  in 
come. 

If  any  one  had  prophesied  before  his  marriage  that 
he  would  find  it  difficult  to  tell  this  to  Undine  he  would 
have  smiled  at  the  suggestion;  and  during  their  first 
days  together  it  had  seemed  as  though  pecuniary  ques 
tions  were  the  last  likely  to  be  raised  between  them. 
But  his  marital  education  had  since  made  strides,  and 
he  now  knew  that  a  disregard  for  money  may  imply 
not  the  willingness  to  get  on  without  it  but  merely  a 
blind  confidence  that  it  will  somehow  be  provided.  If 
Undine,  like  the  lilies  of  the  field,  took  no  care,  it  was 
not  because  her  wants  were  as  few  but  because  she 
assumed  that  care  would  be  taken  for  her  by  those 
whose  privilege  it  was  to  enable  her  to  unite  floral 
insouciance  with  Sheban  elegance. 

She  had  met  Ralph's  first  note  of  warning  with  the 
assurance  that  she  "didn't  mean  to  worry";  and  her 
tone  implied  that  it  was  his  business  to  do  so  for  her. 
He  certainly  wanted  to  guard  her  from  this  as  from  all 
other  cares;  he  wanted  also,  and  still  more  passionately 
after  the  topic  had  once  or  twice  recurred  between  them, 
to  guard  himself  from  the  risk  of  judging  where  he  still 
adored.  These  restraints  to  frankness  kept  him  silent 
[149] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

during  the  remainder  of  the  drive,  and  when,  after 
dinner,  Undine  again  complained  of  her  headache,  he 
let  her  go  up  to  her  room  and  wandered  out  into  the 
dimly  lit  streets  to  renewed  communion  with  his  prob 
lems. 

They  hung  on  him  insistently  as  darkness  fell,  and 
Siena  grew  vocal  with  that  shrill  diversity  of  sounds 
that  breaks,  on  summer  nights,  from  every  cleft  of  the 
masonry  in  old  Italian  towns.  Then  the  moon  rose,  un 
folding  depth  by  depth  the  lines  of  the  antique  land; 
and  Ralph,  leaning  against  an  old  brick  parapet,  and 
watching  each  silver-blue  remoteness  disclose  itself  be 
tween  the  dark  masses  of  the  middle  distance,  felt  his 
spirit  enlarged  and  pacified.  For  the  first  time,  as  his 
senses  thrilled  to  the  deep  touch  of  beauty,  he  asked 
himself  if  out  of  these  floating  and  fugitive  vibrations 
he  might  not  build  something  concrete  and  stable,  if 
even  such  dull  common  cares  as  now  oppressed  him 
might  not  become  the  motive  power  of  creation.  If  he 
could  only,  on  the  spot,  do  something  with  all  the  ac 
cumulated  spoils  of  the  last  months — something  that 
should  both  put  money  into  his  pocket  and  harmony 
into  the  rich  confusion  of  his  spirit!  "I'll  write — I'll 
write:  that  must  be  what  the  whole  thing  means,"  he 
said  to  himself,  with  a  vague  clutch  at  some  solution 
which  should  keep  him  a  little  longer  hanging  half-way 
down  the  steep  of  disenchantment. 

He  would  have  stayed  on,  heedless  of  time,  to  trace 
[150] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

the  ramifications  of  his  idea  in  the  complex  beauty  of 
the  scene,  but  for  the  longing  to  share  his  mood  with 
Undine.  For  the  last  few  months  every  thought  and  sen 
sation  had  been  instantly  transmuted  into  such  emo 
tional  impulses  and,  though  the  currents  of  communi 
cation  between  himself  and  Undine  were  neither  deep 
nor  numerous,  each  fresh  rush  of  feeling  seemed  strong 
enough  to  clear  a  way  to  her  heart.  He  hurried  back, 
almost  breathlessly,  to  the  inn ;  but  even  as  he  knocked 
at  her  door  the  subtle  emanation  of  other  influences 
seemed  to  arrest  and  chill  him. 

She  had  put  out  the  lamp,  and  sat  by  the  window  in 
the  moonlight,  her  head  propped  on  a  listless  hand. 
As  Marvell  entered  she  turned;  then,  without  speaking, 
she  looked  away  again. 

He  was  used  to  this  mute  reception,  and  had  learned 
that  it  had  no  personal  motive,  but  was  the  result  of 
an  extremely  simplified  social  code.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Spragg 
seldom  spoke  to  each  other  when  they  met,  and  words 
of  greeting  seemed  almost  unknown  to  their  domestic 
vocabulary.  Marvell,  at  first,  had  fancied  that  his  own 
warmth  would  call  forth  a  response  from  his  wife,  who 
had  been  so  quick  to  learn  the  forms  of  worldly  inter 
course;  but  he  soon  saw  that  she  regarded  intimacy  as 
a  pretext  for  escaping  from  such  forms  into  a  total 
absence  of  expression. 

To-night,  however,  he  felt  another  meaning  in  her 
silence,  and  perceived  that  she  intended  him  to  feel  it. 
[151] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

He  met  it  by  silence,  but  of  a  different  kind;  letting  his 
nearness  speak  for  him  as  he  knelt  beside  her  and 
laid  his  cheek  against  hers.  She  seemed  hardly  aware 
of  the  gesture;  but  to  that  he  was  also  used.  She  had 
never  shown  any  repugnance  to  his  tenderness,  but  such 
response  as  it  evoked  was  remote  and  Ariel-like,  sug 
gesting,  from  the  first,  not  so  much  of  the  recoil  of  igno 
rance  as  the  coolness  of  the  element  from  which  she  took 
her  name. 

As  he  pressed  her  to  him  she  seemed  to  grow  less 
impassive  and  he  felt  her  resign  herself  like  a  tired 
child.  He  held  his  breath,  not  daring  to  break  the  spell. 

At  length  he  whispered:  "I've  just  seen  such  a  won 
derful  thing — I  wish  you'd  been  with  me!" 

"What  sort  of  a  thing?"  She  turned  her  head  with 
a  faint  show  of  interest. 

"A — I  don't  know — a  vision.  .  .  It  came  to  me  out 
there  just  now  with  the  moonrise." 

"A  vision?"  Her  interest  flagged.  "I  never  cared 
much  about  spirits.  Mother  used  to  try  to  drag  me  to 
seances — but  they  always  made  me  sleepy." 

Ralph  laughed.  "I  don't  mean  a  dead  spirit  but  a 
living  one!  I  saw  the  vision  of  a  book  I  mean  to  do.  It 
came  to  me  suddenly,  magnificently,  swooped  down  on 
me  as  that  big  white  moon  swooped  down  on  the  black 
landscape,  tore  at  me  like  a  great  white  eagle — like 
the  bird  of  Jove!  After  all,  imagination  was  the  eagle 
that  devoured  Prometheus!" 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

She  drew  away  abruptly,  and  the  bright  moonlight 
showed  him  the  apprehension  in  her  face.  "You're  not 
going  to  write  a  book  here?" 

He  stood  up  and  wandered  away  a  step  or  two;  then 
he  turned  and  came  back.  "Of  course  not  here.  Wher 
ever  you  want.  The  main  point  is  that  it's  come  to  me 
— no,  that  it's  come  back  to  me!  For  it's  all  these 
months  together,  it's  all  our  happiness — it's  the  mean 
ing  of  life  that  I've  found,  and  it's  you,  dearest,  you 
who've  given  it  to  me!" 

He  dropped  down  beside  her  again;  but  she  disen 
gaged  herself  and  he  heard  a  little  sob  in  her  throat. 

"Undine— what's  the  matter?" 

"Nothing.  .  .  I  don't  know.  .  .  I  suppose  I'm  home 
sick.  .  ." 

"Homesick?  You  poor  darling!  You're  tired  of  trav 
elling?  What  is  it?" 

"I  don't  know.  .  .  I  don't  like  Europe  .  .  .  it's  not 
what  I  expected,  and  I  think  it's  all  too  dreadfully 
dreary!"  The  words  broke  from  her  in  a  long  wail  of 
rebellion. 

Marvell  gazed  at  her  perplexedly.  It  seemed  strange 
that  such  unguessed  thoughts  should  have  been  stirring 
in  the  heart  pressed  to  his.  "It's  less  interesting  than 
you  expected — or  less  amusing?  Is  that  it?" 

"It's  dirty  and  ugly — all  the  towns  we've  been  to 
are  disgustingly  dirty.  I  loathe  the  smells  and  the  beg 
gars.  I'm  sick  and  tired  of  the  stuffy  rooms  in  the 
[1531 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

hotels.  I  thought  it  would  all  be  so  splendid — but  New 
York's  ever  so  much  nicer!" 

"Not  New  York  in  July?" 

"I  don't  care — there  are  the  roof -gardens,  anyway; 
and  there  are  always  people  round.  All  these  places 
seem  as  if  they  were  dead.  It's  all  like  some  awful 
cemetery." 

A  sense  of  compunction  checked  Marvell's  laughter. 
"Don't  cry,  dear — don't!  I  see,  I  understand.  You're 
lonely  and  the  heat  has  tired  you  out.  It  is  dull  here; 
awfully  dull;  I've  been  stupid  not  to  feel  it.  But  we'll 
start  at  once — we'll  get  out  of  it." 

She  brightened  instantly.  "We'll  go  up  to  Switzer 
land?" 

"We'll  go  up  to  Switzerland."  He  had  a  fleeting 
glimpse  of  the  quiet  place  with  the  green  water-fall, 
where  he  might  have  made  tryst  with  his  vision;  then 
he  turned  his  mind  from  it  and  said:  "We'll  go  just 
where  you  want.  How  soon  can  you  be  ready  to  start?" 

"Oh,  to-morrow — the  first  thing  to-morrow!  I'll 
make  Celeste  get  out  of  bed  now  and  pack.  Can  we  go 
right  through  to  St.  Moritz?  I'd  rather  sleep  in  the  train 
than  in  another  of  these  awful  places." 

She  was  on  her  feet  in  a  flash,  her  face  alight,  her 
hair  waving  and  floating  about  her  as  though  it  rose 
on  her  happy  heart-beats. 

"Oh,  Ralph,  it's  sweet  of  you,  and  I  love  you!"  she 
cried  out,  letting  him  take  her  to  his  breast. 
[154] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 


XII 


Ethe  quiet  place  with  the  green  water-fall  Ralph's 
vision  might  have  kept  faith  with  him;  but  how 
could  he  hope  to  surprise  it  in  the  midsummer  crowds 
of  St.  Moritz? 

Undine,  at  any  rate,  had  found  there  what  she 
wanted;  and  when  he  was  at  her  side,  and  her  radiant 
smile  included  him,  every  other  question  was  in  abey 
ance.  But  there  were  hours  of  solitary  striding  over 
bare  grassy  slopes,  face  to  face  with  the  ironic  inter 
rogation  of  sky  and  mountains,  when  his  anxieties  came 
back,  more  persistent  and  importunate.  Sometimes  they 
took  the  form  of  merely  material  difficulties.  How,  for 
instance,  was  he  to  meet  the  cost  of  their  ruinous  suite 
at  the  Engadine  Palace  while  he  awaited  Mr.  Spragg's 
next  remittance?  And  once  the  hotel  bills  were  paid, 
what  would  be  left  for  the  journey  back  to  Paris,  the 
looming  expenses  there,  the  price  of  the  passage  to 
America?  These  questions  would  fling  him  back  on  the 
thought  of  his  projected  book,  which  was,  after  all,  to 
be  what  the  masterpieces  of  literature  had  mostly  been 
— a  pot-boiler.  Well!  Why  not?  Did  not  the  worshipper 
always  heap  the  rarest  essences  on  the  altar  of  his 
divinity?  Ralph  still  rejoiced  in  the  thought  of  giving 
back  to  Undine  something  of  the  beauty  of  their  first 
months  together.  But  even  on  his  solitary  walks  the 
[155] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

vision  eluded  him;  and  he  could  spare  so  few  hours  to 
its  pursuit! 

Undine's  days  were  crowded,  and  it  was  still  a  mat 
ter  of  course  that  where  she  went  he  should  follow.  He 
had  risen  visibly  in  her  opinion  since  they  had  been  ab 
sorbed  into  the  life  of  the  big  hotels,  and  she  had  seen 
that  his  command  of  foreign  tongues  put  him  at  an 
advantage  even  in  circles  where  English  was  generally 
spoken  if  not  understood.  Undine  herself,  hampered  by 
her  lack  of  languages,  was  soon  drawn  into  the  group 
of  compatriots  who  struck  the  social  pitch  of  their  hotel. 
Their  types  were  familiar  enough  to  Ralph,  who  had 
taken  their  measure  in  former  wanderings,  and  come 
across  their  duplicates  in  every  scene  of  continental  idle 
ness.  Foremost  among  them  was  Mrs.  Harvey  Shal- 
lum,  a  showy  Parisianized  figure,  with  a  small  wax- 
featured  husband  whose  ultra-fashionable  clothes  seemed 
a  tribute  to  his  wife's  importance  rather  than  the  mark 
of  his  personal  taste.  Mr.  Shallum,  in  fact,  could  not 
be  said  to  have  any  personal  bent.  Though  he  conversed 
with  a  colourless  fluency  in  the  principal  European 
tongues,  he  seldom  exercised  his  gift  except  in  inter 
course  with  hotel-managers  and  head-waiters ;  and  his 
long  silences  were  broken  only  by  resigned  allusions  to 
the  enormities  he  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  this 
gifted  but  unscrupulous  class. 

Mrs.  Shallum,  though  in  command  of  but  a  few 
verbs,  all  of  which,  on  her  lips,  became  irregular,  man- 
[156] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

aged  to  express  a  polyglot  personality  as  vivid  as  her 
husband's  was  effaced.  Her  only  idea  of  intercourse  with 
her  kind  was  to  organize  it  into  bands  and  subject  it 
to  frequent  displacements;  and  society  smiled  at  her 
for  these  exertions  like  an  infant  vigorously  rocked. 
She  saw  at  once  Undine's  value  as  a  factor  in  her 
scheme,  and  the  two  formed  an  alliance  on  which  Ralph 
refrained  from  shedding  the  cold  light  of  depreciation. 
It  was  a  point  of  honour  with  him  not  to  seem  to  dis 
dain  any  of  Undine's  amusements:  the  noisy  intermi 
nable  picnics,  the  hot  promiscuous  balls,  the  concerts, 
bridge-parties  and  theatricals  which  helped  to  disguise 
the  difference  between  the  high  Alps  and  Paris  or  New 
York.  He  told  himself  that  there  is  always  a  Narcis 
sus-element  in  youth,  and  that  what  Undine  really  en 
joyed  was  the  image  of  her  own  charm  mirrored  in  the 
general  admiration.  With  her  quick  perceptions  and 
adaptabilities  she  would  soon  learn  to  care  more  about 
the  quality  of  the  reflecting  surface;  and  meanwhile  no 
criticism  of  his  should  mar  her  pleasure. 

The  appearance  at  their  hotel  of  the  cavalry-officer 
from  Siena  was  a  not  wholly  agreeable  surprise;  but 
even  after  the  handsome  Marquis  had  been  intro 
duced  to  Undine,  and  had  whirled  her  through  an  eve 
ning's  dances,  Ralph  was  not  seriously  disturbed.  Hus 
band  and  wife  had  grown  closer  to  each  other  since  they 
had  come  to  St.  Moritz,  and  in  the  brief  moments  she 
could  give  him  Undine  was  now  always  gay  and  ap- 
[157] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

proachable.  Her  fitful  humours  had  vanished,  and  she 
showed  qualities  of  comradeship  that  seemed  the  prom 
ise  of  a  deeper  understanding.  But  this  very  hope  made 
him  more  subject  to  her  moods,  more  fearful  of  dis 
turbing  the  harmony  between  them.  Least  of  all  could 
he  broach  the  subject  of  money :  he  had  too  keen  a  mem 
ory  of  the  way  her  lips  could  narrow,  and  her  eyes  turn 
from  him  as  if  he  were  a  stranger. 

It  was  a  different  matter  that  one  day  brought  the 
look  he  feared  to  her  face.  She  had  announced  her  in 
tention  of  going  on  an  excursion  with  Mrs.  Shallum 
and  three  or  four  of  the  young  men  who  formed  the 
nucleus  of  their  shifting  circle,  and  for  the  first  time 
she  did  not  ask  Ralph  if  he  were  coming;  but  he  felt 
no  resentment  at  being  left  out.  He  was  tired  of  these 
noisy  assaults  on  the  high  solitudes,  and  the  prospect 
of  a  quiet  afternoon  turned  his  thoughts  to  his  book. 
Now  if  ever  there  seemed  a  chance  of  recapturing  the 
moonlight  vision.  .  . 

From  his  balcony  he  looked  down  pn  the  assembling 
party.  Mrs.  Shallum  was  already  screaming  bilingually 
at  various  windows  in  the  long  fagade;  and  Undine  pres 
ently  came  out  of  the  hotel  with  the  Marchese  Roviano 
and  two  young  English  diplomatists.  Slim  and  tall  in 
her  trim  mountain  garb,  she  made  the  ornate  Mrs.  Shal 
lum  look  like  a  piece  of  ambulant  upholstery.  The  high 
air  brightened  her  cheeks  and  struck  new  lights  from 
her  hair,  and  Ralph  had  never  seen  her  so  touched  with 
[158] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

morning  freshness.  The  party  was  not  yet  complete, 
and  he  felt  a  movement  of  annoyance  when  he  recog 
nized,  in  the  last  person  to  join  it,  a  Russian  lady  of 
cosmopolitan  notoriety  whom  he  had  run  across  in  his 
unmarried  days,  and  as  to  whom  he  had  already  warned 
Undine.  Knowing  what  strange  specimens  from  the 
depths  slip  through  the  wide  meshes  of  the  watering- 
place  world,  he  had  foreseen  that  a  meeting  with  the 
Baroness  Adelschein  was  inevitable;  but  he  had  not 
expected  her  to  become  one  of  his  wife's  intimate  circle. 
When  the  excursionists  had  started  he  turned  back 
to  his  writing-table  and  tried  to  take  up  his  work;  but 
he  could  not  fix  his  thoughts:  they  were  far  away,  in 
pursuit  of  Undine.  He  had  been  but  five  months  mar 
ried,  and  it  seemed,  after  all,  rather  soon  for  him  to  be 
dropped  out  of  such  excursions  as  unquestioningly  as 
poor  Harvey  Shallum.  He  smiled  away  this  first  twinge 
of  jealousy,  but  the  irritation  it  left  found  a  pretext 
in  his  displeasure  at  Undine's  choice  of  companions. 
Mrs.  Shallum  grated  on  his  taste,  but  she  was  as  open 
to  inspection  as  a  shop-window,  and  he  was  sure  that 
time  would  teach  his  wife  the  cheapness  of  what  she 
had  to  show.  Roviano  and  the  Englishmen  were  well 
enough  too:  frankly  bent  on  amusement,  but  pleasant 
and  well-bred.  But  they  would  naturally  take  their  tone 
from  the  women  they  were  with;  and  Madame  Adel- 
schein's  tone  was  notorious.  He  knew  also  that  Undine's 
faculty  of  self-defense  was  weakened  by  the  instinct  of 
[159] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

adapting  herself  to  whatever  company  she  was  in,  of 
copying  "the  others"  in  speech  and  gesture  as  closely 
as  she  reflected  them  in  dress ;  and  he  was  disturbed  by 
the  thought  of  what  her  ignorance  might  expose  her  to. 

She  came  back  late,  flushed  with  her  long  walk,  her 
face  all  sparkle  and  mystery,  as  he  had  seen  it  in  the 
first  days  of  their  courtship;  and  the  look  somehow  re 
vived  his  irritated  sense  of  having  been  intentionally 
left  out  of  the  party. 

"You've  been  gone  forever.  Was  it  the  Adelschein 
who  made  you  go  such  lengths? "  he  asked  her,  trying  to 
keep  to  his  usual  joking  tone. 

Undine,  as  she  dropped  down  on  the  sofa  and  un 
pinned  her  hat,  shed  on  him  the  light  of  her  guileless 
gaze. 

"I  don't  know:  everybody  was  amusing.  The  Mar 
quis  is  awfully  bright." 

"I'd  no  idea  you  or  Bertha  Shallum  knew  Madame 
Adelschein  well  enough  to  take  her  off  with  you  in  that 
way." 

Undine  sat  absently  smoothing  the  tuft  of  glossy 
cock's-feathers  in  her  hat. 

"I  don't  see  that  you've  got  to  know  people  partic 
ularly  well  to  go  for  a  walk  with  them.  The  Baroness  is 
awfully  bright  too." 

She  always  gave  her  acquaintances  their  titles,  seem 
ing  not,  in  this  respect,  to  have  noticed  that  a  simpler 
form  prevailed. 

[160] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"I  don't  dispute  the  interest  of  what  she  says;  but 
I've  told  you  what  decent  people  think  of  what  she 
does,"  Ralph  retorted,  exasperated  by  what  seemed  a 
wilful  pretense  of  ignorance. 

She  continued  to  scrutinize  him  with  her  clear  eyes, 
in  which  there  was  no  shadow  of  offense. 

"You  mean  they  don't  want  to  go  round  with  her? 
You're  mistaken:  it's  not  true.  She  goes  round  with 
everybody.  She  dined  last  night  with  the  Grand  Duch 
ess;  Roviano  told  me  so." 

This  was  not  calculated  to  make  Ralph  take  a  more 
tolerant  view  of  the  question. 

"Does  he  also  tell  you  what's  said  of  her?" 

"What's  said  of  her?"  Undine's  limpid  glance  re 
buked  him.  "Do  you  mean  that  disgusting  scandal  you 
told  me  about?  Do  you  suppose  I'd  let  him  talk  to  me 
about  such  things?  I  meant  you're  mistaken  about  her 
social  position.  He  says  she  goes  everywhere." 

Ralph  laughed  impatiently.  "No  doubt  Roviano's 
an  authority;  but  it  doesn't  happen  to  be  his  business 
to  choose  your  friends  for  you." 

Undine  echoed  his  laugh.  "Well,  I  guess  I  don't 
need  anybody  to  do  that:  I  can  do  it  myself,"  she  said, 
with  the  good-humoured  curtness  that  was  the  habitual 
note  of  intercourse  with  the  Spraggs. 

Ralph  sat  down  beside  her  and  laid  a  caressing  touch 
on  her  shoulder.  "No,  you  can't,  you  foolish  child.  You 
know  nothing  of  this  society  you're  in;  of  its  antece- 
[161] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

dents,  its  rules,  its  conventions;  and  it's  my  affair  to 
look  after  you,  and  warn  you  when  you're  on  the  wrong 
track." 

"Mercy,  what  a  solemn  speech!"  She  shrugged  away 
his  hand  without  ill-temper.  "  I  don't  believe  an  Amer 
ican  woman  needs  to  know  such  a  lot  about  their  old 
rules.  They  can  see  I  mean  to  follow  my  own,  and  if 
they  don't  like  it  they  needn't  go  with  me." 

"Oh,  they'll  go  with  you  fast  enough,  as  you  call  it. 
They'll  be  too  charmed  to.  The  question  is  how  far 
they'll  make  you  go  with  them,  and  where  they'll 
finally  land  you." 

She  tossed  her  head  back  with  the  movement  she 
had  learned  in  "speaking"  school-pieces  about  freedom 
and  the  British  tyrant. 

"No  one's  ever  yet  gone  any  farther  with  me  than 
I  wanted!"  she  declared.  She  was  really  exquisitely 
simple. 

"I'm  not  sure  Roviano  hasn't,  in  vouching  for  Ma 
dame  Adelschein.  But  he  probably  thinks  you  know 
about  her.  To  him  this  isn't  *  society'  any  more  than 
the  people  in  an  omnibus  are.  Society,  to  everybody 
here,  means  the  sanction  of  their  own  special  group 
and  of  the  corresponding  groups  elsewhere.  The  Adel 
schein  goes  about  in  a  place  like  this  because  it's  no 
body's  business  to  stop  her;  but  the  women  who  tol 
erate  her  here  would  drop  her  like  a  shot  if  she  set  foot 
on  their  own  ground." 

[162] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  thoughtful  air  with  which  Undine  heard  him 
out  made  him  fancy  this  argument  had  carried;  and 
as  he  ended  she  threw  him  a  bright  look. 

"Well,  that's  easy  enough:  I  can  drop  her  if  she 
comes  to  New  York," 

Ralph  sat  silent  for  a  moment — then  he  turned  away 
and  began  to  gather  up  his  scattered  pages. 

Undine,  in  the  ensuing  days,  was  no  less  often  with 
Madame  Adelschein,  and  Ralph  suspected  a  challenge 
in  her  open  frequentation  of  the  lady.  But  if  challenge 
there  were,  he  let  it  lie.  Whether  his  wife  saw  more  or 
less  of  Madame  Adelschein  seemed  no  longer  of  much 
consequence:  she  had  so  amply  shown  him  her  ability 
to  protect  herself.  The  pang  lay  in  the  completeness  of 
the  proof — in  the  perfect  functioning  of  her  instinct  of 
self-preservation.  For  the  first  time  he  was  face  to  face 
with  his  hovering  dread :  he  was  judging  where  he  still 
adored. 

Before  long  more  pressing  cares  absorbed  him.  He 
had  already  begun  to  watch  the  post  for  his  father-in- 
law's  monthly  remittance,  without  precisely  knowing 
how,  even  with  its  aid,  he  was  to  bridge  the  gulf  of 
expense  between  St.  Moritz  and  New  York.  The  non- 
arrival  of  Mr.  Spragg's  cheque  was  productive  of  graver 
fears,  and  these  were  abruptly  confirmed  when,  coming 
in  one  afternoon,  he  found  Undine  crying  over  a  letter 
from  her  mother. 

[163] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Her  distress  made  him  fear  that  Mr.  Spragg  was  ill, 
and  he  drew  her  to  him  soothingly;  but  she  broke  away 
with  an  impatient  movement. 

"Oh,  they're  all  well  enough — but  father's  lost  a  lot 
of  money.  He's  been  speculating,  and  he  can't  send  us 
anything  for  at  least  three  months." 

Ralph  murmured  reassuringly:  "As  long  as  there's 
no  one  ill! " — but  in  reality  he  was  following  her  despair 
ing  gaze  down  the  long  perspective  of  their  barren 
quarter. 

"Three  months!  Three  months!" 

Undine  dried  her  eyes,  and  sat  with  set  lips  and  tap 
ping  foot  while  he  read  her  mother's  letter. 

"Your  poor  father!  It's  a  hard  knock  for  him.  I'm 
sorry,"  he  said  as  he  handed  it  back. 

For  a  moment  she  did  not  seem  to  hear;  then  she 
said  between  her  teeth:  "It's  hard  for  us.  I  suppose  now 
we'll  have  to  go  straight  home." 

He  looked  at  her  with  wonder.  "If  that  were  all! 
In  any  case  I  should  have  to  be  back  in  a  few  weeks." 

"But  we  needn't  have  left  here  in  August!  It's  the 
first  place  in  Europe  that  I've  liked,  and  it's  just  my 
luck  to  be  dragged  away  from  it!" 

"I'm  so  awfully  sorry,  dearest.  It's  my  fault  for  per 
suading  you  to  marry  a  pauper." 

"It's  father's  fault.  Why  on  earth  did  he  go  and 
speculate?  There's  no  use  his  saying  he's  sorry  now!" 
She  sat  brooding  for  a  moment  and  then  suddenly  took 
[164] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Ralph's  hand.  "Couldn't  your  people  do  something — 
help  us  out  just  this  once,  I  mean?" 

He  flushed  to  the  forehead:  it  seemed  inconceivable 
that  she  should  make  such  a  suggestion. 

"I  couldn't  ask  them — it's  not  possible.  My  grand 
father  does  as  much  as  he  can  for  me,  and  my  mother 
has  nothing  but  what  he  gives  her." 

Undine  seemed  unconscious  of  his  embarrassment. 
"He  doesn't  give  us  nearly  as  much  as  father  does," 
she  said;  and,  as  Ralph  remained  silent,  she  went  on: 
"Couldn't  you  ask  your  sister,  then?  I  must  have  some 
clothes  to  go  home  in." 

His  heart  contracted  as  he  looked  at  her.  What  sin 
ister  change  came  over  her  when  her  will  was  crossed? 
She  seemed  to  grow  inaccessible,  implacable — her  eyes 
were  like  the  eyes  of  an  enemy. 

"I  don't  know — I'll  see,"  he  said,  rising  and  moving 
away  from  her.  At  that  moment  the  touch  of  her  hand 
was  repugnant.  Yes — he  might  ask  Laura,  no  doubt: 
and  whatever  she  had  would  be  his.  But  the  necessity 
was  bitter  to  him,  and  Undine's  unconsciousness  of  the 
fact  hurt  him  more  than  her  indifference  to  her  father's 
misfortune. 

What  hurt  him  most  was  the  curious  fact  that,  for 
all  her  light  irresponsibility,  it  was  always  she  who 
made  the  practical  suggestion,  hit  the  nail  of  expediency 
on  the  head.  No  sentimental  scruple  made  the  blow 
waver  or  deflected  her  resolute  aim.  She  had  thought 
[  1651 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

at  once  of  Laura,  and  Laura  was  his  only,  his  inevitable, 
resource.  His  anxious  mind  pictured  his  sister's  wonder, 
and  made  him  wince  under  the  sting  of  Henley  Fair- 
ford's  irony:  Fairford,  who  at  the  time  of  the  marriage 
had  sat  silent  and  pulled  his  moustache  while  every  one 
else  argued  and  objected,  yet  under  whose  silence  Ralph 
had  felt  a  deeper  protest  than  under  all  the  reasoning  of 
the  others.  It  was  no  comfort  to  reflect  that  Fairford 
would  probably  continue  to  say  nothing!  But  necessity 
made  light  of  these  twinges,  and  Ralph  set  his  teeth 
and  cabled. 

Undine's  chief  surprise  seemed  to  be  that  Laura's 
response,  though  immediate  and  generous,  did  not  en 
able  them  to  stay  on  at  St.  Moritz.  But  she  apparently 
read  in  her  husband's  look  the  uselessness  of  such  a 
hope,  for,  with  one  of  the  sudden  changes  of  mood 
that  still  disarmed  him,  she  accepted  the  need  of  de 
parture,  and  took  leave  philosophically  of  the  Shal- 
lums  and  their  band.  After  all,  Paris  was  ahead,  and  in 
September  one  would  have  a  chance  to  see  the  new 
models  and  surprise  the  secret  councils  of  the  dress 
makers. 

Ralph  was  astonished  at  the  tenacity  with  which  she 
held  to  her  purpose.  He  tried,  when  they  reached  Paris, 
to  make  her  feel  the  necessity  of  starting  at  once  for 
home;  but  she  complained  of  fatigue  and  of  feeling 
vaguely  unwell,  and  he  had  to  yield  to  her  desire  for  rest. 
The  word,  however,  was  to  strike  him  as  strangely 
[1661 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

misapplied,  for  from  the  day  of  their  arrival  she  was 
in  a  state  of  perpetual  activity.  She  seemed  to  have 
mastered  her  Paris  by  divination,  and  between  the 
bounds  of  the  Boulevards  and  the  Place  Vendome 
she  moved  at  once  with  supernatural  ease. 

"Of  course,"  she  explained  to  him,  "I  understand 
how  little  we've  got  to  spend;  but  I  left  New  York  with 
out  a  rag,  and  it  was  you  who  made  me  countermand 
my  trousseau,  instead  of  having  it  sent  after  us.  I  wish 
now  I  hadn't  listened  to  you — father'd  have  had  to  pay 
for  that  before  he  lost  his  money.  As  it  is,  it  will  be 
cheaper  in  the  end  for  me  to  pick  up  a  few  things  here. 
The  advantage  of  going  to  the  French  dress-makers 
is  that  they'll  wait  twice  as  long  for  their  money  as 
the  people  at  home.  And  they're  all  crazy  to  dress  me 
— Bertha  Shallum  will  tell  you  so :  she  says  no  one  ever 
had  such  a  chance!  That's  why  I  was  willing  to  come 
to  this  stuffy  little  hotel — I  wanted  to  save  every  scrap 
I  could  to  get  a  few  decent  things.  And  over  here  they're 
accustomed  to  being  bargained  with — you  ought  to  see 
how  I've  beaten  them  down!  Have  you  any  idea  what  a 
dinner-dress  costs  in  New  York ?" 

So  it  went  on,  obtusely  and  persistently,  whenever  he 
tried  to  sound  the  note  of  prudence.  But  on  other 
themes  she  was  more  than  usually  responsive.  Paris 
enchanted  her,  and  they  had  delightful  hours  at  the 
theatres — the  "little"  ones — amusing  dinners  at  fash 
ionable  restaurants,  and  reckless  evenings  in  haunts 
where  she  thrilled  with  simple  glee  at  the  thought  of 
[1671 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

what  she  must  so  obviously  be  "taken  for."  All  these 
familiar  diversions  regained,  for  Ralph,  a  fresh  zest  in 
her  company.  Her  innocence,  her  high  spirits,  her 
astounding  comments  and  credulities,  renovated  the 
old  Parisian  adventure  and  flung  a  veil  of  romance 
over  its  hackneyed  scenes.  Beheld  through  such  a  me 
dium  the  future  looked  less  near  and  implacable,  and 
Ralph,  when  he  had  received  a  reassuring  letter  from 
his  sister,  let  his  conscience  sleep  and  slipped  forth  on 
the  high  tide  of  pleasure.  After  all,  in  New  York  amuse 
ments  would  be  fewer,  and  their  life,  for  a  time,  per 
haps  more  quiet.  Moreover,  Ralph's  dim  glimpses  of 
Mr.  Spragg's  past  suggested  that  the  latter  was  likely 
to  be  on  his  feet  again  at  any  moment,  and  atoning  by 
redoubled  prodigalities  for  his  temporary  straits;  and 
beyond  all  these  possibilities  there  was  the  book  to 
be  written — the  book  on  which  Ralph  was  sure  he 
should  get  a  real  hold  as  soon  as  they  settled  down  in 
New  York. 

Meanwhile  the  daily  cost  of  living,  and  the  bills  that 
could  not  be  deferred,  were  eating  deep  into  Laura's 
subsidy.  Ralph's  anxieties  returned,  and  his  plight  was 
brought  home  to  him  with  a  shock  when,  on  going 
one  day  to  engage  passages,  he  learned  that  the  prices 
were  that  of  the  "rush  season,"  and  one  of  the  condi 
tions  immediate  payment.  At  other  times,  he  was  told 
the  rules  were  easier;  but  in  September  and  October 
no  exception  could  be  made. 

As  he  walked  away  with  this  fresh  weight  on  his 
[168] 


THE   CUSTOM   OF  THE   COUNTRY 

mind  he  caught  sight  of  the  strolling  figure  of  Peter 
Van  Degen — Peter  lounging  and  luxuriating  among  the 
seductions  of  the  Boulevard  with  the  disgusting  ease  of 
a  man  whose  wants  are  all  measured  by  money,  and 
who  always  has  enough  to  gratify  them. 

His  present  sense  of  these  advantages  revealed  itself 
in  the  affability  of  his  greeting  to  Ralph,  and  in  his 
off-hand  request  that  the  latter  should  "look  up  Clare," 
who  had  come  over  with  him  to  get  her  winter  finery. 

"She's  motoring  to  Italy  next  week  with  some  of 
her  long-haired  friends — but  I'm  off  for  the  other  side; 
going  back  on  the  Sorceress.  She's  just  been  overhauled 
at  Greenock,  and  we  ought  to  have  a  good  spin  over. 
Better  come  along  with  me,  old  man." 

The  Sorceress  was  Van  Degen's  steam-yacht,  most 
huge  and  complicated  of  her  kind:  it  was  his  habit, 
after  his  semi-annual  flights  to  Paris  and  London,  to 
take  a  joyous  company  back  on  her  and  let  Clare 
return  by  steamer.  The  character  of  these  parties 
made  the  invitation  almost  an  offense  to  Ralph;  but 
reflecting  that  it  was  probably  a  phrase  distributed  to 
every  acquaintance  when  Van  Degen  was  in  a  rosy 
mood,  he  merely  answered:  "Much  obliged,  my  dear 
fellow;  but  Undine  and  I  are  sailing  immediately." 

Peter's  glassy  eye  grew  livelier.  "Ah,  to  be  sure — 

you're  not  over  the  honeymoon  yet.  How's  the  bride? 

Stunning  as  ever?  My  regards  to  her,  please.  I  suppose 

she's  too  deep  in  dress-making  to  be  called  on? — but 

[169] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

don't  you  forget  to  look  up  Clare!"  He  hurried  on  in 
pursuit  of  a  flitting  petticoat  and  Ralph  continued  his 
walk  home. 

He  prolonged  it  a  little  in  order  to  put  off  telling 
Undine  of  his  plight;  for  he  could  devise  only  one  way 
of  meeting  the  cost  of  the  voyage,  and  that  was  to  take 
it  at  once,  and  thus  curtail  their  Parisian  expenses.  But 
he  knew  how  unwelcome  this  plan  would  be,  and  he 
shrank  the  more  from  seeing  Undine's  face  harden 
since,  of  late,  he  had  so  basked  in  its  brightness. 

When  at  last  he  entered  the  little  salon  she  called 
"stuffy"  he  found  her  in  conference  with  a  blond- 
bearded  gentleman  who  wore  the  red  ribbon  in  his 
lapel,  and  who,  on  Ralph's  appearance — and  at  a  sign, 
as  it  appeared,  from  Mrs.  Marvell — swept  into  his 
note-case  some  small  objects  that  had  lain  on  the  table, 
and  bowed  himself  out  with  a  "Madame — Monsieur" 
worthy  of  the  highest  traditions. 

Ralph  looked  after  him  with  amusement.  "Who's 
your  friend — an  Ambassador  or  a  tailor?" 

Undine  was  rapidly  slipping  on  her  rings,  which,  as 
he  now  saw,  had  also  been  scattered  over  the  table. 

"Oh,  it  was  only  that  jeweller  I  told  you  about — 
the  one  Bertha  Shallum  goes  to." 

"A  jeweller?  Good  heavens,  my  poor  girl!  You're 
buying  jewels?"  The  extravagance  of  the  idea  struck 
a  laugh  from  him. 

Undine's  face  did  not  harden:  it  took  on,  instead, 
[170] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

an  almost  deprecating  look.  "Of  course  not — how  silly 
you  are!  I  only  wanted  a  few  old  things  reset.  But  I 
won't  if  you'd  rather  not." 

She  came  to  him  and  sat  down  at  his  side,  laying 
her  hand  on  his  arm.  He  took  the  hand  up  and  looked 
at  the  deep  gleam  of  the  sapphires  in  the  old  family 
ring  he  had  given  her. 

"You  won't  have  that  reset?"  he  said,  smiling  and 
twisting  the  ring  about  on  her  finger;  then  he  went  on 
with  his  thankless  explanation.  "It's  not  that  I  don't 
want  you  to  do  this  or  that;  it's  simply  that,  for  the 
moment,  we're  rather  strapped.  I've  just  been  to  see 
the  steamer  people,  and  our  passages  will  cost  a  good 
deal  more  than  I  thought." 

He  mentioned  the  sum  and  the  fact  that  he  must  give 
an  answer  the  next  day.  Would  she  consent  to  sail  that 
very  Saturday?  Or  should  they  go  a  fortnight  later,  in 
a  slow  boat  from  Plymouth? 

Undine  frowned  on  both  alternatives.  She  was  an 
indifferent  sailor  and  shrank  from  the  possible  "nasti- 
ness"  of  the  cheaper  boat.  She  wanted  to  get  the  voy 
age  over  as  quickly  and  luxuriously  as  possible — Bertha 
Shallum  had  told  her  that  in  a  "  deck-suite "  no  one 
need  be  sea-sick — but  she  wanted  still  more  to  have 
another  week  or  two  of  Paris;  and  it  was  always  hard 
to  make  her  see  why  circumstances  could  not  be  bent 
to  her  wishes. 

"This  week?  But  how  on  earth  can  I  be  ready? 
[171] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Besides,  we're  dining  at  Enghien  with  the  Shallums  on 
Saturday,  and  motoring  to  Chantilly  with  the  Jim 
Driscolls  on  Sunday.  I  can't  imagine  how  you  thought 
we  could  go  this  week!" 

But  she  still  opposed  the  cheap  steamer,  and  after 
they  had  carried  the  question  on  to  Voisin's,  and  there 
unprofitably  discussed  it  through  a  long  luncheon,  it 
seemed  no  nearer  a  solution. 

"Well,  think  it  over — let  me  know  this  evening," 
Ralph  said,  proportioning  the  waiter's  fee  to  a  bill 
burdened  by  Undine's  reckless  choice  of  primeurs. 

His  wife  was  to  join  the  newly-arrived  Mrs.  Shal- 
lum  in  a  round  of  the  rue  de  la  Paix;  and  he  had  seized 
the  opportunity  of  slipping  off  to  a  classical  perform 
ance  at  the  Frangais.  On  their  arrival  in  Paris  he  had 
taken  Undine  to  one  of  these  entertainments,  but  it  left 
her  too  weary  and  puzzled  for  him  to  renew  the  attempt, 
and  he  had  not  found  time  to  go  back  without  her.  He 
was  glad  now  to  shed  his  cares  in  such  an  atmosphere. 
The  play  was  of  the  greatest,  the  interpretation  that  of 
the  vanishing  grand  manner  which  lived  in  his  first 
memories  of  the  Parisian  stage,  and  his  surrender  to 
such  influences  as  complete  as  in  his  early  days.  Caught 
up  in  the  fiery  chariot  of  art,  he  felt  once  more  the  tug 
of  its  coursers  in  his  muscles,  and  the  rush  of  their  flight 
still  throbbed  in  him  when  he  walked  back  late  to  the 
hotel. 


172] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


XIII 

HE  had  expected  to  find  Undine  still  out;  but  on 
the  stairs  he  crossed  Mrs.  Shallum,  who  threw 
at  him  from  under  an  immense  hat-brim:  "Yes,  she's 
in,  but  you'd  better  come  and  have  tea  with  me  at  the 
Luxe.  I  don't  think  husbands  are  wanted!" 

Ralph  laughingly  rejoined  that  that  was  just  the  mo 
ment  for  them  to  appear;  and  Mrs.  Shallum  swept 
on,  crying  back:  "All  the  same,  I'll  wait  for  you!" 

In  the  sitting-room  Ralph  found  Undine  seated  be 
hind  a  tea-table  on  the  other  side  of  which,  in  an  atti 
tude  of  easy  intimacy,  Peter  Van  Degen  stretched  his 
lounging  length. 

He  did  not  move  on  Ralph's  appearance,  no  doubt 
thinking  their  kinship  close  enough  to  make  his  nod 
and  "Hullo!"  a  sufficient  greeting.  Peter  in  intimacy 
was  given  to  miscalculations  of  the  sort,  and  Ralph's 
first  movement  was  to  glance  at  Undine  and  see  how 
it  affected  her.  But  her  eyes  gave  out  the  vivid  rays  that 
noise  and  banter  always  struck  from  them;  her  face,  at 
such  moments,  was  like  a  theatre  with  all  the  lustres 
blazing.  That  the  illumination  should  have  been  kin 
dled  by  his  cousin's  husband  was  not  precisely  agreeable 
to  Marvell,  who  thought  Peter  a  bore  in  society  and  an 
insufferable  nuisance  on  closer  terms.  But  he  was  be 
coming  blunted  to  Undine's  lack  of  discrimination;  and 
[173] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

his  own  treatment  of  Van  Degen  was  always  tempered 
by  his  sympathy  for  Clare. 

He  therefore  listened  with  apparent  good-humour  to 
Peter's  suggestion  of  an  evening  at  a  petit  theatre  with 
the  Harvey  Shallums,  and  joined  in  the  laugh  with 
which  Undine  declared:  "Oh,  Ralph  won't  go — he  only 
likes  the  theatres  where  they  walk  around  in  bath- 
towels  and  talk  poetry. — Isn't  that  what  you've  just 
been  seeing?"  she  added,  with  a  turn  of  the  neck  that 
shed  her  brightness  on  him. 

"What?  One  of  those  five-barrelled  shows  at  the 
Frangais?  Great  Scott,  Ralph — no  wonder  your  wife's 
pining  for  the  Folies  Bergere!" 

"She  needn't,  my  dear  fellow.  We  never  interfere 
with  each  other's  vices." 

Peter,  unsolicited,  was  comfortably  lighting  a  cig 
arette.  "Ah,  there's  the  secret  of  domestic  happiness. 
Marry  somebody  who  likes  all  the  things  you  don't, 
and  make  love  to  somebody  who  likes  all  the  things 
you  do." 

Undine  laughed  appreciatively.  "Only  it  dooms  poor 
Ralph  to  such  awful  frumps.  Can't  you  see  the  sort  of 
woman  who'd  love  his  sort  of  play?" 

"Oh,  I  can  see  her  fast  enough — my  wife  loves  'em," 
said  their  visitor,  rising  with  a  grin;  while  Ralph  threw 
out:  "So  don't  waste  your  pity  on  me!"  and  Undine's 
laugh  had  the  slight  note  of  asperity  that  the  mention 
of  Clare  always  elicited. 

[1741 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"To-morrow  night,  then,  at  Paillard's,"  Van  Degen 
concluded.  "  And  about  the  other  business — that's  a  go 
too?  I  leave  it  to  you  to  settle  the  date." 

The  nod  and  laugh  they  exchanged  seemed  to  hint 
at  depths  of  collusion  from  which  Ralph  was  pointedly 
excluded;  and  he  wondered  how  large  a  programme  of 
pleasure  they  had  already  had  time  to  sketch  out.  He 
disliked  the  idea  of  Undine's  being  too  frequently  seen 
with  Van  Degen,  whose  Parisian  reputation  was  not 
fortified  by  the  connections  that  propped  it  up  in  New 
York;  but  he  did  not  want  to  interfere  with  her  pleas 
ure,  and  he  was  still  wondering  what  to  say  when,  as 
the  door  closed,  she  turned  to  him  gaily. 

"I'm  so  glad  you've  come!  I've  got  some  news  for 
you."  She  laid  a  light  touch  on  his  arm. 

Touch  and  tone  were  enough  to  disperse  his  anxieties, 
and  he  answered  that  he  was  in  luck  to  find  her  al 
ready  in  when  he  had  supposed  her  engaged,  over  a 
Nouveau  Luxe  tea-table,  in  repairing  the  afternoon's 
ravages. 

"Oh,  I  didn't  shop  much — I  didn't  stay  out  long." 
She  raised  a  kindling  face  to  him.  "And  what  do  you 
think  I've  been  doing?  While  you  were  sitting  in  your 
stuffy  old  theatre,  worrying  about  the  money  I  was 
spending  (oh,  you  needn't  fib — I  know  you  were!)  I 
was  saving  you  hundreds  and  thousands.  I've  saved 
you  the  price  of  our  passage!" 

Ralph  laughed  in  pure  enjoyment  of  her  beauty. 
[1751 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

When  she  shone  on  him  like  that  what  did  it  matter 
what  nonsense  she  talked? 

"You  wonderful  woman — how  did  you  do  it?  By 
countermanding  a  tiara?" 

"You  know  I'm  not  such  a  fool  as  you  pretend!" 
She  held  him  at  arm's  length  with  a  nod  of  joyous 
mystery.  "You'll  simply  never  guess!  I've  made  Peter 
Van  Degen  ask  us  to  go  home  on  the  Sorceress.  What 
do  you  say  to  that?" 

She  flashed  it  out  on  a  laugh  of  triumph,  without 
appearing  to  have  a  doubt  of  the  effect  the  announce 
ment  would  produce. 

Ralph  stared  at  her.  "The  Sorceress?  You  made 
him?" 

"Well,  I  managed  it,  I  worked  him  round  to  it!  He's 
crazy  about  the  idea  now — but  I  don't  think  he'd 
thought  of  it  before  he  came." 

"I  should  say  not!"  Ralph  ejaculated.  "He  never 
would  have  had  the  cheek  to  think  of  it." 

"Well,  I've  made  him,  anyhow!  Did  you  ever  know 
such  luck?" 

"Such  luck?"  He  groaned  at  her  obstinate  inno 
cence.  "Do  you  suppose  I'll  let  you  cross  the  ocean  on 
the  Sorceress?" 

She  shrugged  impatiently.  "You  say  that  because 
your  cousin  doesn't  go  on  her." 

"If  she  doesn't,  it's  because  it's  no  place  for  decent 
women." 

[1761 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"It's  Clare's  fault  if  it  isn't.  Everybody  knows  she's 
crazy  about  you,  and  she  makes  him  feel  it.  That's 
why  he  takes  up  with  other  women." 

Her  anger  reddened  her  cheeks  and  dropped  her  brows 
like  a  black  bar  above  her  glowing  eyes.  Even  in  his  re 
coil  from  what  she  said  Ralph  felt  the  tempestuous  heat 
of  her  beauty.  But  for  the  first  time  his  latent  resent 
ments  rose  in  him,  and  he  gave  her  back  wrath  for  wrath. 

"Is  that  the  precious  stuff  he  tells  you?" 

"Do  you  suppose  I  had  to  wait  for  him  to  tell  me? 
Everybody  knows  it — everybody  in  New  York  knew 
she  was  wild  when  you  married.  That's  why  she's  al 
ways  been  so  nasty  to  me.  If  you  won't  go  on  the 
Sorceress  they'll  all  say  it's  because  she  was  jealous  of 
me  and  wouldn't  let  you." 

Ralph's  indignation  had  already  flickered  down  to 
disgust.  Undine  was  no  longer  beautiful — she  seemed  to      . 
have  the  face  of  her  thoughts.  He  stood  up  with  an    / 
impatient  laugh. 

"Is  that  another  of  his  arguments?  I  don't  wonder 
they're  convincing —  "  But  as  quickly  as  it  had  come 
the  sneer  dropped,  yielding  to  a  wave  of  pity,  the  vague 
impulse  to  silence  and  protect  her.  How  could  he  have 
given  way  to  the  provocation  of  her  weakness,  when 
his  business  was  to  defend  her  from  it  and  lift  her  above 
it?  He  recalled  his  old  dreams  of  saving  her  from  Van 
Degenism — it  was  not  thus  that  he  had  imagined  the 
rescue. 

[177] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Don't  let's  pay  Peter  the  compliment  of  squabbling 
over  him,"  he  said,  turning  away  to  pour  himself  a 
cup  of  tea. 

When  he  had  filled  his  cup  he  sat  down  beside  Undine, 
with  a  smile.  "No  doubt  he  was  joking — and  thought 
you  were;  but  if  you  really  made  him  believe  we  might 
go  with  him  you'd  better  drop  him  a  line." 

Undine's  brow  still  gloomed.  "You  refuse,  then?" 

"Refuse?  I  don't  need  to!  Do  you  want  to  succeed  to 
half  the  chorus- world  of  New  York?" 

"They  won't  be  on  board  with  us,  I  suppose!" 

"The  echoes  of  their  conversation  will.  It's  the  only 
language  Peter  knows." 

"He  told  me  he  longed  for  the  influence  of  a  good 
woman —  "  She  checked  herself,  reddening  at  Ralph's 
laugh. 

"Well,  tell  him  to  apply  again  when  he's  been  under 
it  a  month  or  two.  Meanwhile  we'll  stick  to  the  liners." 

Ralph  was  beginning  to  learn  that  the  only  road  to 
her  reason  lay  through  her  vanity,  and  he  fancied  that 
if  she  could  be  made  to  see  Van  Degen  as  an  object 
of  ridicule  she  might  give  up  the  idea  of  the  Sorceress 
of  her  own  accord.  But  her  will  hardened  slowly  under 
his  joking  opposition,  and  she  became  no  less  formi 
dable  as  she  grew  more  calm.  He  was  used  to  women 
who,  in  such  cases,  yielded  as  a  matter  of  course  to 
masculine  judgments:  if  one  pronounced  a  man  "not 
decent"  the  question  was  closed.  But  it  was  Undine's 
[1781 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

habit  to  ascribe  all  interference  with  her  plans  to  per 
sonal  motives,  and  he  could  see  that  she  attributed  his 
opposition  to  the  furtive  machinations  of  poor  Clare. 
It  was  odious  to  him  to  prolong  the  discussion,  for  the 
accent  of  recrimination  was  the  one  he  most  dreaded 
on  her  lips.  But  the  moment  came  when  he  had  to  take 
the  brunt  of  it,  averting  his  thoughts  as  best  he  might 
from  the  glimpse  it  gave  of  a  world  of  mean  familiari 
ties,  of  reprisals  drawn  from  the  vulgarist  of  vocabu 
laries.  Certain  retorts  sped  through  the  air  like  the 
flight  of  household  utensils,  certain  charges  rang  out 
like  accusations 'of  tampering  with  the  groceries.  He 
stiffened  himself  against  such  comparisons,  but  they 
stuck  in  his  imagination  and  left  him  thankful  when 
Undine's  anger  yielded  to  a  burst  of  tears.  He  had  held 
his  own  and  gained  his  point.  The  trip  on  the  Sorceress 
was  given  up,  and  a  note  of  withdrawal  despatched  to 
Van  Degen;  but  at  the  same  time  Ralph  cabled  his  sister 
to  ask  if  she  could  increase  her  loan.  For  he  had  con 
quered  only  at  the  cost  of  a  concession:  Undine  was  to 
stay  in  Paris  till  October,  and  they  were  to  sail  on  a 
fast  steamer,  in  a  deck-suite,  like  the  Harvey  Shallums. 

Undine's  ill-humour  was  soon  dispelled  by  any  new 
distraction,  and  she  gave  herself  to  the  untroubled  en 
joyment  of  Paris.  The  Shallums  were  the  centre  of  a 
like-minded  group,  and  in  the  hours  the  ladies  could 
spare  from  their  dress-makers  the  restaurants  shook 
[179] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

with  their  hilarity  and  the  suburbs  with  the  shriek  of 
their  motors.  Van  Degen,  who  had  postponed  his  sail 
ing,  was  a  frequent  sharer  in  these  amusements;  but 
Ralph  counted  on  New  York  influences  to  detach  him 
from  Undine's  train.  He  was  learning  to  influence  her 
through  her  social  instincts  where  he  had  once  tried  to 
appeal  to  other  sensibilities. 

His  worst  moment  came  when  he  went  to  see  Clare 
Van  Degen,  who,  on  the  eve  of  departure,  had  begged 
him  to  come  to  her  hotel.  He  found  her  less  restless  and 
rattling  than  usual,  with  a  look  in  her  eyes  that  re 
minded  him  of  the  days  when  she  had  haunted  his 
thoughts.  The  visit  passed  off  without  vain  returns  to 
the  past;  but  as  he  was  leaving  she  surprised  him  by 
saying:  "Don't  let  Peter  make  a  goose  of  your  wife." 

Ralph  reddened,  but  laughed. 

"Oh,  Undine's  wonderfully  able  to  defend  herself, 
even  against  such  seductions  as  Peter's." 

Mrs.  Van  Degen  looked  down  with  a  smile  at  the 
bracelets  on  her  thin  brown  wrist.  "His  personal  seduc 
tions — yes.  But  as  an  inventor  of  amusements  he's  in 
exhaustible;  and  Undine  likes  to  be  amused." 

Ralph  made  no  reply  but  showed  no  annoyance.  He 
simply  took  her  hand  and  kissed  it  as  he  said  good 
bye;  and  she  turned  from  him  without  audible  farewell. 

As  the  day  of  departure  approached,  Undine's  ab 
sorption  in  her  dresses  almost  precluded  the  thought 
of  amusement.  Early  and  late  she  was  closeted  with 
[180] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

fitters  and  packers — even  the  competent  Celeste  not 
being  trusted  to  handle  the  treasures  now  pouring  in — 
and  Ralph  cursed  his  weakness  in  not  restraining  her, 
and  then  fled  for  solace  to  museums  and  galleries. 

He  could  not  rouse  in  her  any  scruple  about  incur 
ring  fresh  debts,  yet  he  knew  she  was  no  longer  un 
aware  of  the  value  of  money.  She  had  learned  to  bar 
gain,  pare  down  prices,  evade  fees,  brow-beat  the  small 
tradespeople  and  wheedle  concessions  from  the  great 
— not,  as  Ralph  perceived,  from  any  effort  to  restrain 
her  expenses,  but  only  to  prolong  and  intensify  the 
pleasure  of  spending.  Pained  by  the  trait,  he  tried  to 
laugh  her  out  of  it.  He  told  her  once  that  she  had  a 
miserly  hand — showing  her,  in  proof,  that,  for  all  their 
softness,  the  fingers  would  not  bend  back,  or  the  pink 
palm  open.  But  she  retorted  a  little  sharply  that  it 
was  no  wonder,  since  she'd  heard  nothing  talked  of 
since  their  marriage  but  economy;  and  this  left  him 
without  any  answer.  So  the  purveyors  continued  to 
mount  to  their  apartment,  and  Ralph,  in  the  course 
of  his  frequent  flights  from  it,  found  himself  always 
dodging  the  corners  of  black  glazed  boxes  and  sway 
ing  pyramids  of  pasteboard;  always  lifting  his  hat  to 
sidling  milliners'  girls,  or  effacing  himself  before  slender 
vendeuses  floating  by  in  a  mist  of  opopanax.  He  felt 
incompetent  to  pronounce  on  the  needs  to  which  these 
visitors  ministered;  but  the  reappearance  among  them 
of  the  blond-bearded  jeweller  gave  him  ground  for  fresh 
[181] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

fears.  Undine  had  assured  him  that  she  had  given  up 
the  idea  of  having  her  ornaments  reset,  and  there  had 
been  ample  time  for  their  return;  but  on  his  question 
ing  her  she  explained  that  there  had  been  delays  and 
"bothers"  and  put  him  in  the  wrong  by  asking  ironi 
cally  if  he  supposed  she  was  buying  things  "for  pleasure" 
when  she  knew  as  well  as  he  that  there  wasn't  any 
money  to  pay  for  them. 

But  his  thoughts  were  not  all  dark.  Undine's  moods 
still  infected  him,  and  when  she  was  happy  he  felt  an 
answering  lightness.  Even  when  her  amusements  were 
too  primitive  to  be  shared  he  could  enjoy  their  reflec 
tion  in  her  face.  Only,  as  he  looked  back,  he  was  struck 
by  the  evanescence,  the  lack  of  substance,  in  their 
moments  of  sympathy,  and  by  the  permanent  marks 
left  by  each  breach  between  them.  Yet  he  still  fancied 
that  some  day  the  balance  might  be  reversed,  and  that 
as  she  acquired  a  finer  sense  of  values  the  depths  in  her 
would  find  a  voice. 

Something  of  this  was  in  his  mind  when,  the  after- 

*  noon  before  their  departure,  he  came  home  to  help  her 

with  their  last  arrangements.  She  had  begged  him,  for 

the  day,  to  leave  her  alone  in  their  cramped  salon,  into 

which  belated  bundles  were  still  pouring;  and  it  was 

nearly  dark  when  he  returned.  The  evening  before  she 

had  seemed  pale  and  nervous,  and  at  the  last  moment 

had  excused  herself  from  dining  with  the  Shallums  at  a 

suburban  restaurant.  It  was  so  unlike  her  to  miss  any 

[182] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

opportunity  of  the  kind  that  Ralph  had  felt  a  little 
anxious.  But  with  the  arrival  of  the  packers  she  was 
afoot  and  in  command  again,  and  he  withdrew  sub 
missively,  as  Mr.  Spragg,  in  the  early  Apex  days,  might 
have  fled  from  the  spring  storm  of  "house-cleaning." 

When  he  entered  the  sitting-room,  he  found  it  still  in 
disorder.  Every  chair  was  hidden  under  scattered  dresses, 
tissue-paper  surged  from  the  yawning  trunks  and, 
prone  among  her  heaped-up  finery,  Undine  lay  with 
closed  eyes  on  the  sofa. 

She  raised  her  head  as  he  entered,  and  then  turned 
listlessly  away. 

"My  poor  girl,  what's  the  matter?  Haven't  they 
finished  yet?" 

Instead  of  answering  she  pressed  her  face  into  the 
cushion  and  began  to  sob.  The  violence  of  her  weeping 
shook  her  hair  down  on  her  shoulders,  and  her  hands, 
clenching  the  arm  of  the  sofa,  pressed  it  away  from  her 
as  if  any  contact  were  insufferable. 

Ralph  bent  over  her  in  alarm.  "  Why,  what's  wrong, 
dear?  What's  happened?" 

Her  fatigue  of  the  previous  evening  came  back  to 
him — a  puzzled  hunted  look  in  her  eyes;  and  with  the 
memory  a  vague  wonder  revived.  He  had  fancied  him 
self  fairly  disencumbered  of  the  stock  formulas  about 
the  hallowing  effects  of  motherhood,  and  there  were 
many  reasons  for  not  welcoming  the  news  he  suspected 
she  had  to  give;  but  the  woman  a  man  loves  is  always  a 
special  case,  and  everything  was  different  that  befell 
[183] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine.  If  this  was  what  had  befallen  her  it  was  won 
derful  and  divine:  for  the  moment  that  was  all  he  felt. 

"Dear,  tell  me  what's  the  matter,"  he  pleaded. 

She  sobbed  on  unheedingly  and  he  waited  for  her 
agitation  to  subside.  He  shrank  from  the  phrases  con 
sidered  appropriate  to  the  situation,  but  he  wanted  to 
hold  her  close  and  give  her  the  depth  of  his  heart  in  a 
long  kiss. 

Suddenly  she  sat  upright  and  turned  a  desperate  face 
on  him.  "Why  on  earth  are  you  staring  at  me  like  that? 
Anybody  can  see  what's  the  matter!" 

He  winced  at  her  tone,  but  managed  to  get  one  of 
her  hands  in  his;  and  they  stayed  thus  in  silence,  eye 
to  eye. 

"Are  you  as  sorry  as  all  that?"  he  began  at  length, 
conscious  of  the  flatness  of  his  voice. 

"Sorry — sorry?    I'm — I'm "    She   snatched   her 

hand  away,  and  went  on  weeping. 

"But,  Undine — dearest — bye  and  bye  you'll  feel  dif 
ferently — I  know  you  will!" 

"Differently?  Differently?  When?  In  a  year?  It 
takes  a  year — a  whole  year  out  of  life!  What  do  I  care 
how  I  shall  feel  in  a  year?" 

The  chill  of  her  tone  struck  in.  This  was  more  than  a 
revolt  of  the  nerves:  it  was  a  settled,  a  reasoned  re 
sentment.  Ralph  found  himself  groping  for  extenua 
tions,  evasions — anything  to  put  a  little  warmth  into 
her! 

"Who  knows?  Perhaps,  after  all,  it's  a  mistake." 
[184] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

There  was  no  answering  light  in  her  face.  She  turned 
her  head  from  him  wearily. 

"Don't  you  think,  dear,  you  may  be  mistaken?" 
"Mistaken?  How  on  earth  can  I  be  mistaken?" 
Even  in  that  moment  of  confusion  he  was  struck  by 
the  cold  competence  of  her  tone,  and  wondered  how  she 
could  be  so  sure. 

"You  mean  you've  asked — you've  consulted ?" 

The  irony  of  it  took  him  by  the  throat.  They  were 
the  very  words  he  might  have  spoken  in  some  miserable 
secret  colloquy — the  words  he  was  speaking  to  his  wife ! 
She  repeated  dully:  "I  know  I'm  not  mistaken." 
There  was  another  lo'ng  silence.  Undine  lay  still,  her 
eyes  shut,  drumming  on  the  arm  of  the  sofa  with  a  rest 
less  hand.  The  other  lay  cold  in  Ralph's  clasp,  and 
through  it  there  gradually  stole  to  him  the  benumbing 
influence  of  the  thoughts  she  was  thinking :  the  sense  of 
the  approach  of  illness,  anxiety,  and  expense,  and  of 
the  general  unnecessary  disorganization  of  their  lives. 

"That's  all  you  feel,  then?"  he  asked  at  length  a 
little  bitterly,  as  if  to  disguise  from  himself  the  hateful 
fact  that  he  felt  it  too.  He  stood  up  and  moved  away. 
"That's  all?"  he  repeated. 

"Why,  what  else  do  you  expect  me  to  feel?  I  feel  hor 
ribly  ill,  if  that's  what  you  want."  He  saw  the  sobs 
trembling  up  through  her  again. 

"Poor  dear — poor  girl.  .  .  I'm  so  sorry — so  dreadfully 


sorry!" 


185 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

The  senseless  reiteration  seemed  to  exasperate  her. 
He  knew  it  by  the  quiver  that  ran  through  her  like  the 
premonitory  ripple  on  smooth  water  before  the  coming 
of  the  wind.  She  turned  about  on  him  and  jumped  to 
her  feet. 

"Sorry — you're  sorry?  You  re  sorry?  Why,  what 
earthly  difference  will  it  make  to  you?"  She  drew  back 
a  few  steps  and  lifted  her  slender  arms  from  her  sides. 
"Look  at  me — see  how  I  look — how  I'm  going  to  look! 
You  won't  hate  yourself  more  and  more  every  morning 
when  you  get  up  and  see  yourself  in  the  glass!  Your 
life's  going  on  just  as  usual!  But  what's  mine  going  to 
be  for  months  and  months?  And  just  as  I'd  been  to  all 
this  bother — fagging  myself  to  death  about  all  these 
things—  '  her  tragic  gesture  swept  the  disordered 
room — "just  as  I  thought  I  was  going  home  to  enjoy 
myself,  and  look  nice,  and  see  people  again,  and  have 

a  little  pleasure  after  all  our  worries "  She  dropped 

back  on  the  sofa  with  another  burst  of  tears.  "For  all 
the  good  this  rubbish  will  do  me  now !  I  loathe  the  very 
sight  of  it!"  she  sobbed  with  her  face  in  her  hands. 


186 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


XIV 


IT  was  one  of  the  distinctions  of  Mr.  Claud  Walsing- 
ham  Popple  that  his  studio  was  never  too  much 
encumbered  with  the  attributes  of  his  art  to  permit 
the  installing,  in  one  of  its  cushioned  corners,  of  an 
elaborately  furnished  tea-table  flanked  by  the  most 
varied  seductions  in  sandwiches  and  pastry. 

Mr.  Popple,  like  all  great  men,  had  at  first  had  his  ups 
and  downs;  but  his  reputation  had  been  permanently 
established  by  the  verdict  of  a  wealthy  patron  who, 
returning  from  an  excursion  into  other  fields  of  por 
traiture,  had  given  it  as  the  final  fruit  of  his  experi 
ence  that  Popple  was  the  only  man  who  could  "do 
pearls."  To  sitters  for  whom  this  was  of  the  first  con 
sequence  it  was  another  of  the  artist's  merits  that  he 
always  subordinated  art  to  elegance,  in  life  as  well  as  in  ?' 
his  portraits.  The  "messy"  element  of  production  was 
no  more  visible  in  his  expensively  screened  and  tapestried 
studio  than  its  results  were  perceptible  in  his  painting; 
and  it  was  often  said,  in  praise  of  his  work,  that  he  was 
the  only  artist  who  kept  his  studio  tidy  enough  for  a 
lady  to  sit  to  him  in  a  new  dress. 

Mr.  Popple,  in  fact,  held  that  the  personality  of  the 
artist  should  at  all  times  be  dissembled  behind  that  of 
the  man.  It  was  his  opinion  that  the  essence  of  good- 
breeding  lay  in  tossing  off  a  picture  as  easily  as  you  lit 
[1871 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

a  cigarette.  Ralph  Marvell  had  once  said  of  him  that 
when  he  began  a  portrait  he  always  turned  back  his 
cuffs  and  said:  "Ladies  and  gentlemen,  you  can  see 
there's  absolutely  nothing  here;"  and  Mrs.  Fairford 
supplemented  the  description  by  defining  his  painting 
as  "chafing-dish"  art. 

On  a  certain  late  afternoon  of  December,  some  four 
years  after  Mr.  Popple's  first  meeting  with  Miss  Un 
dine  Spragg  of  Apex,  even  the  symbolic  chafing-dish 
was  nowhere  visible  in  his  studio;  the  only  evidence  of 
its  recent  activity  being  the  full-length  portrait  of  Mrs. 
Ralph  Marvell,  who,  from  her  lofty  easel  and  her 
heavily  garlanded  frame,  faced  the  doorway  with  the 
the  air  of  having  been  invited  to  "receive"  for  Mr. 
Popple. 

The  artist  himself,  becomingly  clad  in  mouse-col 
oured  velveteen,  had  just  turned  away  from  the  picture 
to  hover  above  the  tea-cups;  but  his  place  had  been 
taken  by  the  considerably  broader  bulk  of  Mr.  Peter 
Van  Degen,  who,  tightly  moulded  into  a  coat  of  the 
latest  cut,  stood  before  the  portrait  in  the  attitude  of  a 
first  arrival. 

"Yes,  it's  good — it's  damn  good,  Popp;  you've  hit 
the  hair  off  ripplingly;  but  the  pearls  ain't  big  enough," 
he  pronounced. 

A  slight  laugh  sounded  from  the  raised  dais  behind 
the  easel. 

"Of  course  they're  not!  But  it's  not  his  fault,  poor 
[188] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

man;  he  didn't  give  them  to  me!"  As  she  spoke  Mrs. 
Ralph  Marvell  rose  from  a  monumental  gilt  arm-chair 
of  pseudo- Venetian  design  and  swept  her  long  draperies 
to  Van  Degen's  side. 

"He  might,  then — for  the  privilege  of  painting  you!" 
the  latter  rejoined,  transferring  his  bulging  stare  from 
the  counterfeit  to  the  original.  His  eyes  rested  on 
Mrs.  Marvell's  in  what  seemed  a  quick  exchange 
of  understanding;  then  they  passed  on  to  a  critical 
inspection  of  her  person.  She  was  dressed  for  the 
sitting  in  something  faint  and  shining,  above  which 
the  long  curves  of  her  neck  looked  dead  white  in  the 
cold  light  of  the  studio;  and  her  hair,  all  a  shadowless 
rosy  gold,  was  starred  with  a  hard  glitter  of  diamonds. 

"The  privilege  of  painting  me?  Mercy,  /  have  to 
pay  for  being  painted !  He'll  tell  you  he's  giving  me  the 
picture — but  what  do  you  suppose  this  cost?"  She  laid 
a  finger-tip  on  her  shimmering  dress. 

Van  Degen's  eye  rested  on  her  with  cold  enjoyment. 
"Does  the  price  come  higher  than  the  dress?" 

She  ignored  the  allusion.  "Of  course  what  they 
charge  for  is  the  cut — 

"What  they  cut  away?  That's  what  they  ought  to 
charge  for,  ain't  it,  Popp?" 

Undine  took  this  with  cool  disdain,  but  Mr.  Popple's 
sensibilities  were  offended. 

"My  dear  Peter — really — the  artist,  you  understand, 
sees  all  this  as  a  pure  question  of  colour,  of  pattern; 
[189] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

and  it's  a  point  of  honour  with  the  man  to  steel  himself 
against  the  personal  seduction." 

Mr.  Van  Degen  received  this  protest  with  a  sound 
of  almost  vulgar  derision,  but  Undine  thrilled  agree 
ably  under  the  glance  which  her  portrayer  cast  on  her. 
She  was  flattered  by  Van  Degen's  notice,  and  thought 
his  impertinence  witty;  but  she  glowed  inwardly  at  Mr. 
Popple's  eloquence.  After  more  than  three  years  of  so 
cial  experience  she  still  thought  he  "spoke  beautifully," 
like  the  hero  of  a  novel,  and  she  ascribed  to  jealousy 
the  lack  of  seriousness  with  which  her  husband's  friends 
regarded  him.  His  conversation  struck  her  as  intellect 
ual,  and  his  eagerness  to  have  her  share  his  thoughts 
was  in  flattering  contrast  to  Ralph's  growing  tendency 
to  keep  his  to  himself.  Popple's  homage  seemed  the 
subtlest  proof  of  what  Ralph  could  have  made  of  her 
if  he  had  "really  understood"  her.  It  was  but  another 
step  to  ascribe  all  her  past  mistakes  to  the  lack  of  such 
understanding;  and  the  satisfaction  derived  from  this 
thought  had  once  impelled  her  to  tell  the  artist  that 
he  alone  knew  how  to  rouse  her  "higher  self."  He  had 
assured  her  that  the  memory  of  her  words  would  there 
after  hallow  his  life;  and  as  he  hinted  that  it  had  been 
stained  by  the  darkest  errors  she  was  moved  at  the 
thought  of  the  purifying  influence  she  exerted. 

Thus  it  was  that  a  man  should  talk  to  a  true  woman 
— but  how  few  whom  she  had  known  possessed  the 
secret!  Ralph,  in  the  first  months  of  their  marriage, 
[1901 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

had  been  eloquent  too,  had  even  gone  the  length  of 
quoting  poetry;  but  he  disconcerted  her  by  his  baffling 
twists  and  strange  allusions  (she  always  scented  ridi 
cule  in  the  unknown),  and  the  poets  he  quoted  were 
esoteric  and  abstruse.  Mr.  Popple's  rhetoric  was  drawn 
from  more  familiar  sources,  and  abounded  in  favourite 
phrases  and  in  moving  reminiscences  of  the  Fifth 
Reader.  He  was  moreover  as  literary  as  he  was  artistic; 
possessing  an  unequalled  acquaintance  with  contem 
porary  fiction,  and  dipping  even  into  the  lighter  type 
of  memoirs,  in  which  the  old  acquaintances  of  history 
are  served  up  in  the  disguise  of  "A  Royal  Sorceress" 
or  "Passion  in  a  Palace."  The  mastery  with  which  Mr. 
Popple  discussed  the  novel  of  the  day,  especially  in  re 
lation  to  the  sensibilities  of  its  hero  and  heroine,  gave 
Undine  a  sense  of  intellectual  activity  which  contrasted 
strikingly  with  Marvell's  flippant  estimate  of  such 
works.  "Passion,"  the  artist  implied,  would  have  been 
the  dominant  note  of  his  life,  had  it  not  been  held  in 
check  by  a  sentiment  of  exalted  chivalry,  and  by  the 
sense  that  a  nature  of  such  emotional  intensity  as  his 
must  always  be  "ridden  on  the  curb." 

Van  Degen  was  helping  himself  from  the  tray  of 
iced  cocktails  which  stood  near  the  tea-table,  and  Pop 
ple,  turning  to  Undine,  took  up  the  thread  of  his  dis 
course.  But  why,  he  asked,  why  allude  before  others  to 
feelings  so  few  could  understand?  The  average  man — 
lucky  devil! — (with  a  compassionate  glance  at  Van 
[191] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Degen's  back)  the  average  man  knew  nothing  of  the 
fierce  conflict  between  the  lower  and  higher  natures; 
and  even  the  woman  whose  eyes  had  kindled  it — how 
much  did  she  guess  of  its  violence?  Did  she  know — 
Popple  recklessly  asked — how  often  the  artist  was  for 
gotten  in  the  man — how  often  the  man  would  take  the 
bit  between  his  teeth,  were  it  not  that  the  look  in  her 
eyes  recalled  some  sacred  memory,  some  lesson  learned 
perhaps  beside  his  mother's  knee? 

"I  say,  Popp — was  that  where  you  learned  to  mix 
this  drink?  Because  it  does  the  old  lady  credit,"  Van 
Degen  called  out,  smacking  his  lips;  while  the  artist, 
dashing  a  nervous  hand  through  his  hair,  muttered: 
"Hang  it,  Peter — is  nothing  sacred  to  you?" 

It  pleased  Undine  to  feel  herself  capable  of  inspir 
ing  such  emotions.  She  would  have  been  fatigued  by 
the  necessity  of  maintaining  her  own  talk  on  Popple's 
level,  but  she  liked  to  listen  to  him,  and  especially  to 
have  others  overhear  what  he  said  to  her. 

Her  feeling  for  Van  Degen  was  different.  There  was 
more  similarity  of  tastes  between  them,  though  his 
manner  flattered  her  vanity  less  than  Popple's.  She 
felt  the  strength  of  Van  Degen's  contempt  for  every 
thing  he  did  not  understand  or  could  not  buy:  that 
was  the  only  kind  of  "exclusiveness"  that  impressed 
her.  And  he  was  still  to  her,  as  in  her  inexperienced 
days,  the  master  of  the  mundane  science  she  had  once 
imagined  that  Ralph  Mar  veil  possessed.  During  the 
[192] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

three  years  since  her  marriage  she  had  learned  to  make 
distinctions  unknown  to  her  girlish  categories.  She  had 
found  out  that  she  had  given  herself  to  the  exclusive 
and  the  dowdy  when  the  future  belonged  to  the  showy 
and  the  promiscuous;  that  she  was  in  the  case  of  those 
who  have  cast  in  their  lot  with  a  fallen  cause,  or — 
to  use  an  analogy  more  within  her  range — who  have 
hired  an  opera  box  on  the  wrong  night.  It  was  all  con 
fusing  and  exasperating.  Apex  ideals  had  been  based 
on  the  myth  of  "old  families"  ruling  New  York  from 
a  throne  of  Revolutionary  tradition,  with  the  new 
millionaires  paying  them  feudal  allegiance.  But  experi 
ence  had  long  since  proved  the  delusiveness  of  the. sim 
ile.  Mrs.  Marvell's  classification  of  the  world  into  the 
visited  and  the  unvisited  was  as  obsolete  as  a  mediaeval 
cosmogony.  Some  of  those  whom  Washington  Square 
left  unvisited  were  the  centre  of  social  systems  far  out 
side  its  ken,  and  as  indifferent  to  its  opinions  as  the 
constellations  to  the  reckonings  of  the  astronomers; 
and  all  these  systems  joyously  revolved  about  their 
central  sun  of  gold. 

There  were  moments  after  Undine's  return  to  New 
York  when  she  was  tempted  to  class  her  marriage  with 
the  hateful  early  mistakes  from  the  memories  of  which 
she  had  hoped  it  would  free  her.  Since  it  was  never  her 
habit  to  accuse  herself  of  such  mistakes  it  was  inevi 
table  that  she  should  gradually  come  to  lay  the  blame 
on  Ralph.  She  found  a  poignant  pleasure,  at  this  stage 
[193] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

of  her  career,  in  the  question :  "  What  does  a  young  girl 
know  of  life?'*  And  the  poignancy  was  deepened  by  the 
fact  that  each  of  the  friends  to  whom  she  put  the 
question  seemed  convinced  that — had  the  privilege 
been  his — he  would  have  known  how  to  spare  her  the 
disenchantment  it  implied. 

The  conviction  of  having  blundered  was  never  more 
present  to  her  than  when,  on  this  particular  afternoon, 
the  guests  invited  by  Mr.  Popple  to  view  her  portrait 
began  to  assemble  before  it. 

Some  of  the  principal  figures  of  Undine's  group  had 
rallied  for  the  occasion,  and  almost  all  were  in  exas 
perating  enjoyment  of  the  privileges  for  which  she 
pined.  There  was  young  Jim  Driscoll,  heir-apparent  of 
the  house,  with  his  short  stout  mistrustful  wife,  who 
hated  society,  but  went  everywhere  lest  it  might  be 
thought  she  had  been  left  out;  the  "beautiful  Mrs. 
Beringer,"  a  lovely  aimless  being,  who  kept  (as  Laura 
Fairford  said)  a  home  for  stray  opinions,  and  could 
never  quite  tell  them  apart;  little  Dicky  Bowles,  whom 
every  one  invited  because  he  was  understood  to  "say 
things"  if  one  didn't;  the  Harvey  Shallums,  fresh  from 
Paris,  and  dragging  in  their  wake  a  bewildered  noble 
man  vaguely  designated  as  "the  Count,"  who  offered 
cautious  conversational  openings,  like  an  explorer  trying 
beads  on  savages;  and,  behind  these  more  salient  types, 
the  usual  filling  in  of  those  who  are  seen  everywhere 
because  they  have  learned  to  catch  the  social  eye. 
[1941 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Such  a  company  was  one  to  flatter  the  artist  as  much 
as  his  sitter,  so  completely  did  it  represent  that  una-  / 
nimity  of  opinion  which  constitutes  social  strength.  Not 
one  of  the  number  was  troubled  by  any  personal  theory 
of  art:  all  they  asked  of  a  portrait  was  that  the  cos 
tume  should  be  sufficiently  "life-like,"  and  the  face 
not  too  much  so;  and  a  long  experience  in  idealizing 
flesh  and  realizing  dress-fabrics  had  enabled  Mr.  Popple 
to  meet  both  demands. 

"Hang  it,"  Peter  Van  Degen  pronounced,  standing 
before  the  easel  in  an  attitude  of  inspired  interpreta 
tion,  "the  great  thing  in  a  man's  portrait  is  to  catch 
the  likeness — we  all  know  that;  but  with  a  woman's 
it's  different — a  woman's  picture  has  got  to  be  pleas 
ing.  Who  wants  it  about  if  it  isn't?  Those  big  chaps 
who  blow  about  what  they  call  realism — how  do  their 
portraits  look  in  a  drawing-room?  Do  you  suppose  they 
ever  ask  themselves  that?  They  don't  care — they're  not 
going  to  live  with  the  things!  And  what  do  they  know 
of  drawing-rooms,  anyhow?  Lots  of  them  haven't  even 
got  a  dress-suit.  There's  where  old  Popp  has  the  pull 
over  'em — he  knows  how  we  live  and  what  we  want." 

This  was  received  by  the  artist  with  a  deprecating 
murmur,  and  by  his  public  with  warm  expressions  of 
approval. 

"Happily  in  this  case,"  Popple  began  ("as  in  that  of 
so  many  of  my  sitters,"  he  hastily  put  in),  "there  has 
been  no  need  to  idealize — nature  herself  has  outdone 
the  artist's  dream." 

[  195  ] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Undine,  radiantly  challenging  comparison  with  her 
portrait,  glanced  up  at  it  with  a  smile  of  conscious 
meriti  which  deepened  as  young  Jim  Driscoll  declared: 
"By  Jove,  Mamie,  you  must  be  done  exactly  like  that 
for  the  new  music-room." 

His  wife  turned  a  cautious  eye  upon  the  picture. 

"How  big  is  it?  For  our  house  it  would  have  to  be  a 
good  deal  bigger,"  she  objected;  and  Popple,  fired  by 
the  thought  of  such  a  dimensional  opportunity,  re 
joined  that  it  would  be  the  chance  of  all  others  to 
"work  in"  a  marble  portico  and  a  court-train:  he  had 
just  done  Mrs.  Lycurgus  Ambler  in  a  court- train  and 
feathers,  and  as  that  was  for  Buffalo  of  course  the 
pictures  needn't  clash. 

"Well,  it  would  have  to  be  a  good  deal  bigger  than 
Mrs.  Ambler's,"  Mrs.  Driscoll  insisted;  and  on  Popple's 
suggestion  that  in  that  case  he  might  "work  in"  Dris 
coll,  in  court-dress  also — ("You've  been  presented? 
Well,  you  will  be, — you'll  have  to,  if  I  do  the  picture 
— which  will  make  a  lovely  memento") — Van  Degen 
turned  aside  to  murmur  to  Undine:  "Pure  bluff,  you 
know — Jim  couldn't  pay  for  a  photograph.  Old  Dris 
coll  's  high  and  dry  since  the  Ararat  investigation." 

She  threw  him  a  puzzled  glance,  having  no  time,  in 
her  crowded  existence,  to  follow  the  perturbations  of 
Wall  Street  save  as  they  affected  the  hospitality  of 
Fifth  Avenue. 

"You  mean  they've  lost  their  money?  Won't  they 
give  their  fancy  ball,  then?" 
[1961 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Van  Degen  shrugged.  "Nobody  knows  how  it's  com 
ing  out.  That  queer  chap  Elmer  Moffatt  threatens  to 
give  old  Driscoll  a  fancy  ball — says  he's  going  to  dress 
him  in  stripes!  It  seems  he  knows  too  much  about  the 
Apex  street-railways." 

Undine  paled  a  little.  Though  she  had  already  tried 
on  her  costume  for  the  Driscoll  ball  her  disappointment 
at  Van  Degen's  announcement  was  effaced  by  the  men 
tion  of  Moffatt's  name.  She  had  not  had  the  curiosity 
to  follow  the  reports  of  the  "Ararat  Trust  Investiga 
tion,"  but  once  or  twice  lately,  in  the  snatches  of 
smoking-room  talk,  she  had  been  surprised  by  a  vague 
allusion  to  Elmer  Moffatt,  as  to  an  erratic  financial 
influence,  half  ridiculed,  yet  already  half  redoubtable. 
Was  it  possible  that  the  redoubtable  element  had  pre 
vailed?  That  the  time  had  come  when  Elmer  Moffatt — 
the  Elmer  Moffatt  of  Apex ! — could,  even  for  a  moment, 
cause  consternation  in  the  Driscoll  camp?  He  had  al 
ways  said  he  "saw  things  big";  but  no  one  had  ever 
believed  he  was  destined  to  carry  them  out  on  the  same 
scale.  Yet  apparently  in  those  idle  Apex  days,  while  he 
seemed  to  be  "loafing  and  fooling,"  as  her  father  called 
it,  he  had  really  been  sharpening  his  weapons  of  aggres 
sion;  there  had  been  something,  after  all,  in  the  effect 
of  loose-drifting  power  she  had  always  felt  in  him.  Her 
heart  beat  faster,  and  she  longed  to  question  Van 
Degen;  but  she  was  afraid  of  betraying  herself,  and 
turned  back  to  the  group  about  the  picture. 
[1971 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Mrs.  Driscoll  was  still  presenting  objections  in  a  tone 
of  small  mild  obstinacy.  "Oh,  it's  a  likeness,  of  course 
— I  can  see  that;  but  there's  one  thing  I  must  say,  Mr. 
Popple.  It  looks  like  a  last  year's  dress." 

The  attention  of  the  ladies  instantly  rallied  to  the 
picture,  and  the  artist  paled  at  the  challenge. 

"It  doesn't  look  like  a  last  year's  face,  anyhow — 
that's  what  makes  them  all  wild,"  Van Degen  murmured. 

Undine  gave  him  back  a  quick  smile.  She  had  already 
forgotten  about  Moffatt.  Any  triumph  in  which  she 
shared  left  a  glow  in  her  veins,  and  the  success  of  the 
picture  obscured  all  other  impressions.  She  saw  herself 
throning  in  a  central  panel  at  the  spring  exhibition, 
with  the  crowd  pushing  about  the  picture,  repeating 
her  name;  and  she  decided  to  stop  on  the  way  home 
and  telephone  her  press-agent  to  do  a  paragraph  about 
Popple's  tea. 

But  in  the  hall,  as  she  drew  on  her  cloak,  her  thoughts 
reverted  to  the  Driscoll  fancy  ball.  What  a  blow  if  it 
were  given  up  after  she  had  taken  so  much  trouble 
about  her  dress !  She  was  to  go  as  the  Empress  Joseph 
ine,  after  the  Prudhon  portrait  in  the  Louvre.  The  dress 
was  already  fitted  and  partly  embroidered,  and  she  fore 
saw  the  difficulty  of  persuading  the  dress-maker  to  take 
it  back. 

"Why  so  pale  and  sad,  fair  cousin?  What's  up?" 
Van  Degen  asked,  as  they  emerged  from  the  lift  in 
which  they  had  descended  alone  from  the  studio. 
[198] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"I  don't  know — I'm  tired  of  posing.  And  it  was  so 
frightfully  hot." 

"Yes.  Popple  always  keeps  his  place  at  low-neck 
temperature,  as  if  the  portraits  might  catch  cold." 
Van  Degen  glanced  at  his  watch.  "Where  are  you 
off  to?" 

"West  End  Avenue,  of  course — if  I  can  find  a  cab 
to  take  me  there." 

It  was  not  the  least  of  Undine's  grievances  that  she 
was  still  living  in  the  house  which  represented  Mr. 
Spragg's  first  real-estate  venture  in  New  York.  It  had 
been  understood,  at  the  time  of  her  marriage,  that  the 
young  couple  were  to  be  established  within  the  sacred 
precincts  of  fashion;  but  on  their  return  from  the  honey 
moon  the  still  untenanted  house  in  West  End  Avenue 
had  been  placed  at  their  disposal,  and  in  view  of  Mr. 
Spragg's  financial  embarrassment  even  Undine  had 
seen  the  folly  of  refusing  it.  That  first  winter,  more 
over,  she  had  not  regretted  her  exile :  while  she  awaited 
her  boy's  birth  she  was  glad  to  be  out  of  sight  of  Fifth 
Avenue,  and  to  take  her  hateful  compulsory  exercise 
where  no  familiar  eye  could  fall  on  her.  And  the  next 
year  of  course  her  father  would  give  them  a  better 
house. 

But  the  next  year  rents  had  risen  in  the  Fifth  Avenue 

quarter,  and  meanwhile  little  Paul  Marvell,  from  his 

beautiful  pink  cradle,  was  already  interfering  with  his 

mother's  plans.  Ralph,  alarmed  by  the  fresh  rush  of 

[1991 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

expenses,  sided  with  his  father-in-law  in  urging  Undine 
to  resign  herself  to  West  End  Avenue;  and  thus  after 
three  years  she  was  still  submitting  to  the  incessant 
pin-pricks  inflicted  by  the  incongruity  between  her 
social  and  geographical  situation — the  need  of  having 
to  give  a  west  side  address  to  her  tradesmen,  and  the 
deeper  irritation  of  hearing  her  friends  say:  "Do  let  me 
give  you  a  lift  home,  dear — Oh,  I'd  forgotten!  I'm  afraid 
I  haven't  the  time  to  go  so  far — 

It  was  bad  enough  to  have  no  motor  of  her  own,  to 
be  avowedly  dependent  on  "lifts,"  openly  and  uncon- 
cealably  in  quest  of  them,  and  perpetually  plotting  to 
provoke  their  offer  (she  did  so  hate  to  be  seen  in  a  cab !) ; 
but  to  miss  them,  as  often  as  not,  because  of  the  re 
moteness  of  her  destination,  emphasized  the  hateful 
sense  of  being  "out  of  things." 

Van  Degen  looked  out  at  the  long  snow-piled  street, 
down  which  the  lamps  were  beginning  to  put  their 
dreary  yellow  splashes. 

"Of  course  you  won't  get  a  cab  on  a  night  like  this. 
If  you  don't  mind  the  open  car,  you'd  better  jump  in 
with  me.  I'll  run  you  out  to  the  High  Bridge  and  give 
you  a  breath  of  air  before  dinner." 

The  offer  was  tempting,  for  Undine's  triumph  in  the 
studio  had  left  her  tired  and  nervous — she  was  begin 
ning  to  learn  that  success  may  be  as  fatiguing  as  fail 
ure.  Moreover,  she  was  going  to  a  big  dinner  that  even 
ing,  and  the  fresh  air  would  give  her  the  eyes  and 
[200] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

complexion  she  needed;  but  in  the  back  of  her  mind 
there  lingered  the  vague  sense  of  a  forgotten  engage 
ment.  As  she  tried  to  recall  it  she  felt  Van  Degen  raising 
the  fur  collar  about  her  chin. 

"  Got  anything  you  can  put  over  your  head?  Will  that 
lace  thing  do?  Come  along,  then."  He  pushed  her 
through  the  swinging  doors,  and  added  with  a  laugh,  as 
they  reached  the  street:  "You're  not  afraid  of  being 
seen  with  me,  are  you?  It's  all  right  at  this  hour — 
Ralph's  still  swinging  on  a  strap  in  the  elevated." 

The  winter  twilight  was  deliciously  cold,  and  as  they 
swept  through  Central  Park,  and  gathered  impetus 
for  their  northward  flight  along  the  darkening  Boule 
vard,  Undine  felt  the  rush  of  physical  joy  that  drowns 
scruples  and  silences  memory.  Her  scruples,  indeed, 
were  not  serious ;  but  Ralph  disliked  her  being  too  much 
with  Van  Degen,  and  it  was  her  way  to  get  what  she 
wanted  with  as  little  "fuss"  as  possible.  Moreover,  she 
knew  it  was  a  mistake  to  make  herself  too  accessible 
to  a  man  of  Peter's  sort:  her  impatience  to  enjoy  was 
curbed  by  an  instinct  for  holding  off  and  biding  her 
time  that  resembled  the  patient  skill  with  which  her 
father  had  conducted  the  sale  of  his  "bad"  real  estate 
in  the  Pure  Water  Move  days.  But  now  and  then  youth 
had  its  way — she  could  not  always  resist  the  present 
pleasure.  And  it  was  amusing,  too,  to  be  "talked  about" 
with  Peter  Van  Degen,  who  was  noted  for  not  caring 
for  "nice  women."  She  enjoyed  the  thought  of  triumph- 

raon 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

ing  over  meretricious  charms:  it  ennobled  her  in  her 
own  eyes  to  influence  such  a  man  for  good. 

Nevertheless,  as  the  motor  flew  on  through  the  icy 
twilight,  her  present  cares  flew  with  it.  She  could  not 
shake  off  the  thought  of  the  useless  fancy  dress  which 
symbolized  the  other  crowding  expenses  she  had  not 
dared  confess  to  Ralph.  Van  Degen  heard  her  sigh,  and 
bent  down,  lowering  the  speed  of  the  motor. 

"What's  the  matter?  Isn't  everything  all  right?" 
His  tone  made  her  suddenly  feel  that  she  could  con 
fide  in  him,  and  though  she  began  by  murmuring  that 
it  was  nothing  she  did  so  with  the  conscious  purpose  of 
being  persuaded  to  confess.  And  his  extraordinary 
"niceness"  seemed  to  justify  her  and  to  prove  that  she 
had  been  right  in  trusting  her  instinct  rather  than  in 
following  the  counsels  of  prudence.  Heretofore,  in  their 
talks,  she  had  never  gone  beyond  the  vaguest  hint  of 
material  "bothers" — as  to  which  dissimulation  seemed 
vain  while  one  lived  in  West  End  Avenue !  But  now  that 
the  avowal  of  a  definite  worry  had  been  wrung  from  her 
she  felt  the  injustice  of  the  view  generally  taken  of  poor 
Peter.  For  he  had  been  neither  too  enterprising  nor  too 
cautious  (though  people  said  of  him  that  he  "didn't 
care  to  part");  he  had  just  laughed  away,  in  bluff 
brotherly  fashion,  the  gnawing  thought  of  the  fancy 
dress,  had  assured  her  he'd  give  a  ball  himself  rather 
than  miss  seeing  her  wear  it,  and  had  added:  "Oh, 
hang  waiting  for  the  bill — won't  a  couple  of  thou' 
[  202  1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

make  it  all  right?"  in  a  tone  that  showed  what  a  small 
matter  money  was  to  any  one  who  took  the  larger  view 
of  life. 

The  whole  incident  passed  off  so  quickly  and  easily 
that  within  a  few  minutes  she  had  settled  down — with 
a  nod  for  his  "Everything  jolly  again  now?" — to  un 
troubled  enjoyment  of  the  hour.  Peace  of  mind,  she 
said  to  herself,  was  all  she  needed  to  make  her  happy — 
and  that  was  just  what  Ralph  had  never  given  her!  At 
the  thought  his  face  seemed  to  rise  before  her,  with  the 
sharp  lines  of  care  between  the  eyes :  it  was  almost  like 
a  part  of  his  "nagging"  that  he  should  thrust  himself 
in  at  such  a  moment!  She  tried  to  shut  her  eyes  to  the 
face;  but  a  moment  later  it  was  replaced  by  another,  a 
small  odd  likeness  of  itself;  and  with  a  cry  of  compunc 
tion  she  started  up  from  her  furs. 

"Mercy!  It's  the  boy's  birthday — I  was  to  take  him 
to  his  grandmother's.  She  was  to  have  a  cake  for  him? 
and  Ralph  was  to  come  up  town.  I  knew  there  was  some 
thing  I'd  forgotten!" 


XV 


IN  the  Dagonet  drawing-room  the  lamps  had  long 
been  lit,  and  Mrs.  Fairford,  after  a  last  impatient 
turn,  had  put  aside  the  curtains  of  worn  damask  to 
strain  her  eyes  into  the  darkening  square.  She  came 
back  to  the  hearth,  where  Charles  Bowen  stood  leaning 
[203] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

between  the  prim  caryatides  of  the  white  marble  chim 
ney-piece. 

"No  sign  of  her.  She's  simply  forgotten." 

Bowen  looked  at  his  watch,  and  turned  to  compare 
it  with  the  high-waisted  Empire  clock. 

"Six  o'clock.  Why  not  telephone  again?  There  must 
be  some  mistake.  Perhaps  she  knew  Ralph  would  be 
late." 

Laura  laughed.  "I  haven't  noticed  that  she  follows 
Ralph's  movements  so  closely.  When  I  telephoned  just 
now  the  servant  said  she'd  been  out  since  two.  The 
nurse  waited  till  half -past  four,  not  liking  to  come  with 
out  orders;  and  now  it's  too  late  for  Paul  to  come." 

She  wandered  away  toward  the  farther  end  of  the 
room,  where,  through  half-open  doors,  a  shining  surface 
of  mahogany  reflected  a  flower-wreathed  cake  in  which 
two  candles  dwindled. 

"Put  them  out,  please,"  she  said  to  some  one  in  the 
background;  then  she  shut  the  doors  and  turned  back 
to  Bowen. 

"It's  all  so  unlucky — my  grandfather  giving  up  his 
drive,  and  mother  backing  out  of  her  hospital  meeting, 
and  having  all  the  committee  down  on  her.  And  Hen 
ley:  I'd  even  coaxed  Henley  away  from  his  bridge!  He 
escaped  again  just  before  you  came.  Undine  promised 
she'd  have  the  boy  here  at  four.  It's  not  as  if  it  had 
never  happened  before.  She's  always  breaking  her  en 
gagements." 

[204] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"She  has  so  many  that  it's  inevitable  some  should 
get  broken." 

"Ah,  if  she'd  only  choose!  Now  that  Ralph  has  had 
to  go  into  business,  and  is  kept  in  his  office  so  late,  it's 
cruel  of  her  to  drag  him  out  every  night.  He  told  us  the 
other  day  they  hadn't  dined  at  home  for  a  month. 
Undine  doesn't  seem  to  notice  how  hard  he  works." 

Bowen  gazed  meditatively  at  the  crumbling  fire.  "No 
— why  should  she?" 

"Why  should  she?  Really,  Charles !  " 

"Why  should  she,  when  she  knows  nothing  about 
it?" 

"She  may  know  nothing  about  his  business;  but  she 
must  know  it's  her  extravagance  that's  forced  him  into 
it."  Mrs.  Fairford  looked  at  Bowen  reproachfully.  "You 
talk  as  if  you  were  on  her  side!" 

"Are  there  sides  already?  If  so,  I  want  to  look  down 
on  them  impartially  from  the  heights  of  pure  specula 
tion.  I  want  to  get  a  general  view  of  the  whole  prob 
lem  of  American  marriages." 

Mrs.  Fairford  dropped  into  her  arm-chair  with  a  sigh. 
"If  that's  what  you  want  you  must  make  haste!  Most 
of  them  don't  last  long  enough  to  be  classified." 

"I  grant  you  it  takes  an  active  mind.  But  the  weak 
point  is  so  frequently  the  same  that  after  a  time  one 
knows  where  to  look  for  it." 

"What  do  you  call  the  weak  point?" 

He  paused.  "The  fact  that  the  average  American 
looks  down  on  his  wife." 

[205] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Mrs.  Fairford  was  up  with  a  spring.  "If  that's  where 
paradox  lands  you!" 

Bowen  mildly  stood  his  ground.  "Well — doesn't  he 
prove  it?  How  much  does  he  let  her  share  in  the  real 
business  of  life?  How  much  does  he  rely  on  her  judgment 
and  help  in  the  conduct  of  serious  affairs?  Take  Ralph, 
for  instance — you  say  his  wife's  extravagance  forces 
him  to  work  too  hard;  but  that's  not  what's  wrong. 
It's  normal  for  a  man  to  work  hard  for  a  woman — 
what's  abnormal  is  his  not  caring  to  tell  her  anything 
about  it." 

"To  tell  Undine?  She'd  be  bored  to  death  if  he  did!" 

"Just  so;  she'd  even  feel  aggrieved.  But  why?  Be 
cause  it's  against  the  custom  of  the  country.  And  whose 
fault  is  that?  The  man's  again — I  don't  mean  Ralph, 
I  mean  the  genus  he  belongs  to:  homo  sapiens,  Ameri- 
canus.  Why  haven't  we  taught  our  women  to  take  an 
interest  in  our  work?  Simply  because  we  don't  take 
enough  interest  in  them." 

Mrs.  Fairford,  sinking  back  into  her  chair,  sat  gaz 
ing  at  the  vertiginous  depths  above  which  his  thought 
seemed  to  dangle  her. 

"Fow  don't?  The  American  man  doesn't — the  most 
slaving,  self-effacing,  self-sacrificing ?" 

"Yes;  and  the  most  indifferent:  there's  the  point. 
The  'slaving's'  no  argument  against  the  indifference. 
To  slave  for  women  is  part  of  the  old  American  tradi 
tion;  lots  of  people  give  their  lives  for  dogmas  they've 
ceased  to  believe  in.  Then  again,  in  this  country  the 
[  2061 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

passion  for  making  money  has  preceded  the  knowing 
how  to  spend  it,  and  the  American  man  lavishes  his 
fortune  on  his  wife  because  he  doesn't  know  what  else 
to  do  with  it." 

"Then  you  call  it  a  mere  want  of  imagination  for  a 
man  to  spend  his  money  on  his  wife?" 

"Not  necessarily — but  it's  a  want  of  imagination  to 
fancy  it's  all  he  owes  her.  Look  about  you  and  you'll 
see  what  I  mean.  Why  does  the  European  woman  in 
terest  herself  so  much  more  in  what  the  men  are  doing? 
Because  she's  so  important  to  them  that  they  make  it 
worth  her  while!  She's  not  a  parenthesis,  as  she  is  here 
— she's  in  the  very  middle  of  the  picture.  I'm  not  im 
plying  that  Ralph  isn't  interested  in  his  wife — he's  a 
passionate,  a  pathetic  exception.  But  even  he  has  to 
conform  to  an  environment  where  all  the  romantic 
values  are  reversed.  Where  does  the  real  life  of  most 
American  men  lie?  In  some  woman's  drawing-room  or 
in  their  offices?  The  answer's  obvious,  isn't  it?  The 
emotional  centre  of  gravity's  not  the  same  in  the  two 
hemispheres.  In  the  effete  societies  it's  love,  in  our  new 
one  it's  business.  In  America  the  real  crime  passionnel 
is  a  'big  steal' — there's  more  excitement  in  wrecking 
railways  than  homes." 

Bowen  paused  to  light  another  cigarette,  and  then 

took  up  his  theme.  "Isn't  that  the  key  to  our  easy 

divorces?  If  we  cared  for  women  in  the  old  barbarous 

possessive  way  do  you  suppose  we'd  give  them  up  as 

[207] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

readily  as  we  do?  The  real  paradox  is  the  fact  that  the 
men  who  make,  materially,  the  biggest  sacrifices  for 
their  women,  should  do  least  for  them  ideally  and  ro 
mantically.  And  what's  the  result — how  do  the  women 
avenge  themselves?  All  my  sympathy's  with  them,  poor 
deluded  dears,  when  I  see  their  fallacious  little  attempts 
to  trick  out  the  leavings  tossed  them  by  the  preoccu 
pied  male — the  money  and  the  motors  and  the  clothes 
— and  pretend  to  themselves  and  each  other  that  that's 
what  really  constitutes  life!  Oh,  I  know  what  you're 
going  to  say — it's  less  and  less  of  a  pretense  with  them, 
I  grant  you;  they're  more  and  more  succumbing  to  the 
force  of  the  suggestion;  but  here  and  there  I  fancy  there's 
one  who  still  sees  through  the  humbug,  and  knows  that 
money  and  motors  and  clothes  are  simply  the  big  bribe 
she's  paid  for  keeping  out  of  some  man's  way!" 

Mrs.  Fairford  presented  an  amazed  silence  to  the 
rush  of  this  tirade;  but  when  she  rallied  it  was  to  mur 
mur:  "And  is  Undine  one  of  the  exceptions?" 

Her  companion  took  the  shot  with  a  smile.  "No — 
she's  a  monstrously  perfect  result  of  the  system:  the 
completest  proof  of  its  triumph.  It's  Ralph  who's  the 
victim  and  the  exception." 

"Ah,  poor  Ralph!"  Mrs.  Fairford  raised  her  head 
quickly.  "I  hear  him  now.  I  suppose,"  she  added  in 
an  undertone,  "we  can't  give  him  your  explanation  for 
his  wife's  having  forgotten  to  come?" 

Bowen  echoed  her  sigh,  and  then  seemed  to  toss  it 
[208] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

from  him  with  his  cigarette-end;  but  he  stood  in  silence 
while  the  door  opened  and  Ralph  Marvell  entered. 

"Well,  Laura!  Hallo,  Charles — have  you  been  cele 
brating  too?"  Ralph  turned  to  his  sister.  "It's  outra 
geous  of  me  to  be  so  late,  and  I  daren't  look  my  son  in 
the  face!  But  I  stayed  down  town  to  make  provision 
for  his  future  birthdays."  He  returned  Mrs.  Fairford's 
kiss.  "Don't  tell  me  the  party's  over,  and  the  guest  of 
honour  gone  to  bed?" 

As  he  stood  before  them,  laughing  and  a  little  flushed, 
the  strain  of  long  fatigue  sounding  through  his  gaiety 
and  looking  out  of  his  anxious  eyes,  Mrs.  Fairford  threw 
a  glance  at  Bowen  and  then  turned  away  to  ring  the 
bell. 

"Sit  down,  Ralph — you  look  tired.  I'll  give  you  some 
tea." 

He  dropped  into  an  arm-chair.  "  I  did  have  rather  a 
rush  to  get  here — but  hadn't  I  better  join  the  revellers? 
Where  are  they?" 

He  walked  to  the  end  of  the  room  and  threw  open 
the  dining-room  doors.  "Hallo — where  have  they  all 
gone  to?  What  a  jolly  cake!"  He  went  up  to  it.  "Why, 
it's  never  even  been  cut!" 

Mrs.  Fairford  called  after  him:  "Come  and  have  your 
tea  first." 

"No,  no — tea  afterward,  thanks.  Are  they  all  up 
stairs  with  my  grandfather?  I  must  make  my  peace 

with  Undine " 

[209] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

His  sister  put  her  arm  through  his,  and  drew  him 
back  to  the  fire. 

"Undine  didn't  come." 

"Didn't  come?  Who  brought  the  boy,  then?" 

"He  didn't  come  either.  That's  why  the  cake's  not 
cut." 

Ralph  frowned.  "What's  the  mystery?  Is  he  ill,  or 
what's  happened?" 

"Nothing's  happened — Paul's  all  right.  Apparently 
Undine  forgot.  She  never  went  home  for  him,  and  the 
nurse  waited  till  it  was  too  late  to  come." 

She  saw  his  eyes  darken;  but  he  merely  gave  a  slight 
laugh  and  drew  out  his  cigarette  case.  "Poor  little 
Paul — poor  chap!"  He  moved  toward  the  fire.  "Yes, 
please — some  tea." 

He  dropped  back  into  his  chair  with  a  look  of  weari 
ness,  as  if  some  strong  stimulant  had  suddenly  ceased 
to  take  effect  on  him;  but  before  the  tea-table  was 
brought  back  he  had  glanced  at  his  watch  and  was  on 
his  feet  again. 

"But  this  won't  do.  I  must  rush  home  and  see  the 
poor  chap  before  dinner.  And  my  mother — and  my 
grandfather?  I  want  to  say  a  word  to  them — I  must 
make  Paul's  excuses!" 

"  Grandfather's  taking  his  nap.  And  mother  had  to 
rush  out  for  a  postponed  committee  meeting — she  left 
as  soon  as  we  heard  Paul  wasn't  coming." 

"Ah,  I  see."  He  sat  down  again.  "Yes,  make  the 
[2101 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

tea  strong,  please.  I've  had  a  beastly  fagging  sort  of 
day." 

He  leaned  back  with  half-closed  eyes,  his  untouched 
cup  in  his  hand.  Bowen  took  leave,  and  Laura  sat  silent, 
watching  her  brother  under  lowered  lids  while  she 
feigned  to  be  busy  with  the  kettle.  Ralph  presently 
emptied  his  cup  and  put  it  aside;  then,  sinking  into  his 
former  attitude,  he  clasped  his  hands  behind  his  head 
and  lay  staring  apathetically  into  the  fire.  But  suddenly 
he  came  to  life  and  started  up.  A  motor-horn  had 
sounded  outside,  and  there  was  a  noise  of  wheels  at  the 
door. 

"There's  Undine!  I  wonder  what  could  have  kept 
her."  He  jumped  up  and  walked  to  the  door;  but  it 
was  Clare  Van  Degen  who  came  in. 

At  sight  of  him  she  gave  a  little  murmur  of  pleasure. 
"  What  luck  to  find  you !  No,  not  luck — I  came  because 
I  knew  you'd  be  here.  He  never  comes  near  me,  Laura: 
I  have  to  hunt  him  down  to  get  a  glimpse  of  him!" 

Slender  and  shadowy  in  her  long  furs,  she  bent  to  kiss 
Mrs.  Fairford  and  then  turned  back  to  Ralph.  "Yes,  I 
knew  I'd  catch  you  here.  I  knew  it  was  the  boy's  birth 
day,  and  I've  brought  him  a  present:  a  vulgar  expen 
sive  Van  Degen  offering.  I've  not  enough  imagination 
left  to  find  the  right  thing,  the  thing  it  takes  feeling 
and  not  money  to  buy.  When  I  look  for  a  present  now 
adays  I  never  say  to  the  shopman:  'I  want  this  or 
that ' — I  simply  say :  *  Give  me  something  that  costs  so 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

much."3  She  drew  a  parcel  from  her  muff.  "Where's 
the  victim  of  my  vulgarity?  Let  me  crush  him  under 
the  weight  of  my  gold." 

Mrs.  Fairford  sighed  out  "  Clare— Clare !"  and  Ralph 
smiled  at  his  cousin. 

"I'm  sorry;  but  you'll  have  to  depute  me  to  present 
it.  The  birthday's  over;  you're  too  late." 

She  looked  surprised.  "Why,  I've  just  left  Mamie 
Driscoll,  and  she  told  me  Undine  was  still  at  Popple's 
studio  a  few  minutes  ago:  Popple's  giving  a  tea  to 
show  the  picture." 

"Popple's  giving  a  tea?"  Ralph  struck  an  attitude  of 
mock  consternation.  "Ah,  in  that  case !  In  Pop 
ple's  society  who  wouldn't  forget  the  flight  of  time?" 

He  had  recovered  his  usual  easy  tone,  and  Laura  saw 
that  Mrs.  Van  Degen's  words  had  dispelled  his  preoccu 
pation.  He  turned  to  his  cousin.  "Will  you  trust  me 
with  your  present  for  the  boy?" 

Clare  gave  him  the  parcel.  "I'm  sorry  not  to  give 
it  myself.  I  said  what  I  did  because  I  knew  what  you 
and  Laura  were  thinking — but  it's  really  a  battered  old 
Dagonet  bowl  that  came  down  to  me  from  our  revered 
great-grandmother. ' ' 

"What — the  heirloom  you  used  to  eat  your  porridge 
out  of?"  Ralph  detained  her  hand  to  put  a  kiss  on  it. 
"That's  dear  of  you!" 

She  threw  him  one  of  her  strange  glances.  "Why 
not  say:  *  That's  like  you?'  But  you  don't  remember 
[2121 


THE   CJJSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

what  I'm  like."  She  turned  away  to  glance  at  the  clock. 
"  It's  late,  and  I  must  be  off.  I'm  going  to  a  big  dinner 
at  the  Chauncey  Filings' — but  you  must  be  going  there 
too,  Ralph?  You'd  better  let  me  drive  you  home." 

In  the  motor  Ralph  leaned  back  in  silence,  while  the 
rug  was  drawn  over  their  knees,  and  Clare  restlessly  fin 
gered  the  row  of  gold-topped  objects  in  the  rack  at  her 
elbow.  It  was  restful  to  be  swept  through  the  crowded 
streets  in  this  smooth  fashion,  and  Clare's  presence  at 
his  side  gave  him  a  vague  sense  of  ease. 

For  a  long  time  now  feminine  nearness  had  come  to 
mean  to  him,  not  this  relief  from  tension,  but  the  ever- 
renewed  dread  of  small  daily  deceptions,  evasions,  sub 
terfuges.  The  change  had  come  gradually,  marked  by 
one  disillusionment  after  another;  but  there  had  been 
one  moment  that  formed  the  point  beyond  which  there 
was  no  returning.  It  was  the  moment,  a  month  or  two 
before  his  boy's  birth,  when,  glancing  over  a  batch  of 
belated  Paris  bills,  he  had  come  on  one  from  the  jeweller 
he  had  once  found  in  private  conference  with  Undine. 
The  bill  was  not  large,  but  two  of  its  items  stood  out 
sharply.  "Resetting  pearl  and  diamond  pendant.  Re 
setting  sapphire  and  diamond  ring."  The  pearl  and  dia 
mond  pendant  was  his  mother's  wedding  present;  the 
ring  was  the  one  he  had  given  Undine  on  their  engage 
ment.  That  they  were  both  family  relics,  kept  unchanged 
through  several  generations,  scarcely  mattered  to  him 
at  the  time:  he  felt  only  the  stab  of  his  wife's  deception. 
She  had  assured  him  in  Paris  that  she  had  not  had  her 
[213] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

jewels  reset.  He  had  noticed,  soon  after  their  return  to 
New  York,  that  she  had  left  off  her  engagement-ring; 
but  the  others  were  soon  discarded  also,  and  in  answer 
to  his  question  she  had  told  him  that,  in  her  ailing 
state,  rings  "worried"  her.  Now  he  saw  she  had  de 
ceived  him,  and,  forgetting  everything  else,  he  went  to 
her,  bill  in  hand.  Her  tears  and  distress  filled  him  with 
immediate  contrition.  Was  this  a  time  to  torment  her 
about  trifles?  His  anger  seemed  to  cause  her  actual 
physical  fear,  and  at  the  sight  he  abased  himself  in 
entreaties  for  forgiveness.  When  the  scene  ended  she 
had  pardoned  him,  and  the  reset  ring  was  on  her 
finger.  .  . 

Soon  afterward,  the  birth  of  the  boy  seemed  to  wipe 
out  these  humiliating  memories;  yet  Marvell  found  in 
time  that  they  were  not  effaced,  but  only  momentarily 
crowded  out  of  sight.  In  reality,  the  incident  had  a 
meaning  out  of  proportion  to  its  apparent  serious 
ness,  for  it  put  in  his  hand  a  clue  to  a  new  side  of  his 
wife's  character.  He  no  longer  minded  her  having  lied 
about  the  jeweller;  what  pained  him  was  that  she  had 
been  unconscious  of  the  wound  she  inflicted  in  destroy 
ing  the  identity  of  the  jewels.  He  saw  that,  even  after 
their  explanation,  she  still  supposed  he  was  angry  only 
because  she  had  deceived  him;  and  the  discovery  that 
she  was  completely  unconscious  of  states  of  feeling  on 
*  which  so  much  of  his  inner  life  depended  marked  a  new 
stage  in  their  relation. 

[214] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

He  was  not  thinking  of  all  this  as  he  sat  beside  Clare 
Van  Degen;  but  it  was  part  of  the  chronic  disquietude 
which  made  him  more  alive  to  his  cousin's  sympathy, 
her  shy  unspoken  understanding.  After  all,  he  and  she 
were  of  the  same  blood  and  had  the  same  traditions. 
She  was  light  and  frivolous,  without  strength  of  will  or 
depth  of  purpose;  but  she  had  the  frankness  of  her 
foibles,  and  she  would  never  have  lied  to  him  or  traded 
on  his  tenderness. 

Clare's  nervousness  gradually  subsided,  and  she 
lapsed  into  a  low-voiced  mood  which  seemed  like  an 
answer  to  his  secret  thought.  But  she  did  not  sound  the 
personal  note,  and  they  chatted  quietly  of  common 
place  things:  of  the  dinner-dance  at  which  they  were 
presently  to  meet,  of  the  costume  she  had  chosen  for 
the  Driscoll  fancy-ball,  the  recurring  rumours  of  old 
Driscoll's  financial  embarrassment,  and  the  mysterious 
personality  of  Elmer  Moffatt,  on  whose  movements 
Wall  Street  was  beginning  to  fix  a  fascinated  eye.  When 
Ralph,  the  year  after  his  marriage,  had  renounced  his 
profession  to  go  into  partnership  with  a  firm  of  real- 
estate  agents,  he  had  come  in  contact  for  the  first  time 
with  the  drama  of  "business,"  and  whenever  he  could 
turn  his  attention  from  his  own  tasks  he  found  a  certain 
interest  in  watching  the  fierce  interplay  of  its  forces. 
In  the  down-town  world  he  had  heard  things  of  Mof 
fatt  that  seemed  to  single  him  out  from  the  common 
herd  of  money-makers:  anecdotes  of  his  coolness,  his 
[2151 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

lazy  good-temper,  the  humorous  detachment  he  pre 
served  in  the  heat  of  conflicting  interests;  and  his  figure 
was  enlarged  by  the  mystery  that  hung  about  it — the 
fact  that  no  one  seemed  to  know  whence  he  came,  or 
how  he  had  acquired  the  information  which,  for  the 
moment,  was  making  him  so  formidable. 

"I  should  like  to  see  him,"  Ralph  said;  "he  must  be 
a  good  specimen  of  the  one  of  the  few  picturesque 
types  we've  got." 

"Yes — it  might  be  amusing  to  fish  him  out;  but  the 
most  picturesque  types  in  Wall  Street  are  generally  the 
tamest  in  a  drawing-room."  Clare  considered.  "But 
doesn't  Undine  know  him?  I  seem  to  remember  seeing 
them  together." 

"Undine  and  Moffatt?  Then  you  know  him — you've 
met  him?" 

"Not  actually  met  him — but  he's  been  pointed  out  to 
me.  It  must  have  been  some  years  ago.  Yes — it  was 
one  night  at  the  theatre,  just  after  you  announced  your 
engagement."  He  fancied  her  voice  trembled  slightly, 
as  though  she  thought  he  might  notice  her  way  of  dat 
ing  her  memories.  "You  came  into  our  box,"  she  went 
on,  "and  I  asked  you  the  name  of  the  red-faced  man 
who  was  sitting  in  the  stall  next  to  Undine.  You  didn't 
know,  but  some  one  told  us  it  was  Moffatt." 

Marvell  was  more  struck  by  her  tone  than  by  what 
she  was  saying.  "If  Undine  knows  him  it's  odd  she's 
never  mentioned  it,"  he  answered  indifferently. 
[216] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

The  motor  stopped  at  his  door  and  Clare,  as  she  held 
out  her  hand,  turned  a  first  full  look  on  him. 

"Why  do  you  never  come  to  see  me?  I  miss  you  more 
than  ever,"  she  said. 

He  pressed  her  hand  without  answering,  but  after 
the  motor  had  rolled  away  he  stood  for  a  while  on  the 
pavement,  looking  after  it. 

When  he  entered  the  house  the  hall  was  still  dark 
and  the  small  over-furnished  drawing-room  empty. 
The  parlour-maid  told  him  that  Mrs.  Marvell  had  not 
yet  come  in,  and  he  went  upstairs  to  the  nursery.  But 
on  the  threshold  the  nurse  met  him  with  the  whispered 
request  not  to  make  a  noise,  as  it  had  been  hard  to 
quiet  the  boy  after  the  afternoon's  disappointment, 
and  she  had  just  succeeded  in  putting  him  to  sleep. 

Ralph  went  down  to  his  own  room  and  threw  him 
self  in  the  old  college  arm-chair  in  which,  four  years 
previously,  he  had  sat  the  night  out,  dreaming  of  Un 
dine.  He  had  no  study  of  his  own,  and  he  had  crowded 
into  his  narrow  bed-room  his  prints  and  bookshelves, 
and  the  other  relics  of  his  youth.  As  he  sat  among 
them  now  the  memory  of  that  other  night  swept  over 
him — the  night  when  he  had  heard  the  "call"!  Fool  as 
he  had  been  not  to  recognize  its  meaning  then,  he  knew 
himself  triply  mocked  in  being,  even  now,  at  its  mercy. 
The  flame  of  love  that  had  played  about  his  passion 
for  his  wife  had  died  down  to  its  embers;  all  the  trans 
figuring  hopes  and  illusions  were  gone,  but  they  had 
[217] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

left  an  unquenchable  ache  for  her  nearness,  her  smile, 
her  touch.  His  life  had  come  to  be  nothing  but  a  long 
effort  to  win  these  mercies  by  one  concession  after  an 
other  :  the  sacrifice  of  his  literary  projects,  the  exchange 
of  his  profession  for  an  uncongenial  business,  and  the 
incessant  struggle  to  make  enough  money  to  satisfy 
her  increasing  exactions.  That  was  where  the  "call" 
had  led  him.  .  . 

The  clock  struck  eight,  but  it  was  useless  to  begin 
to  dress  till  Undine  came  in,  and  he  stretched  himself 
out  in  his  chair,  reached  for  a  pipe  and  took  up  the 
evening  paper.  His  passing  annoyance  had  died  out; 
he  was  usually  too  tired  after  his  day's  work  for  such 
feelings  to  keep  their  edge  long.  But  he  was  curious — 
disinterestedly  curious — to  know  what  pretext  Undine 
would  invent  for  being  so  late,  and  what  excuse  she 
would  have  found  for  forgetting  the  little  boy's  birth 
day. 

He  read  on  till  half -past  eight;  then  he  stood  up  and 
sauntered  to  the  window.  The  avenue  below  it  was 
deserted;  not  a  carriage  or  motor  turned  the  corner 
around  which  he  expected  Undine  to  appear,  and 
he  looked  idly  in  the  opposite  direction.  There  too 
the  perspective  was  nearly  empty,  so  empty  that  he 
singled  out,  a  dozen  blocks  away,  the  blazing  lamps  of 
a  large  touring-car  that  was  bearing  furiously  down  the 
avenue  from  Morningside.  As  it  drew  nearer  its  speed 
slackened,  and  he  saw  it  hug  the  curb  and  stop  at  his 
[218] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

door.  By  the  light  of  the  street  lamp  he  recognized  his 
wife  as  she  sprang  out  and  detected  a  familiar  silhou 
ette  in  her  companion's  fur-coated  figure.  Then  the 
motor  flew  on  and  Undine  ran  up  the  steps. 

Ralph  went  out  on  the  landing.  He  saw  her  coming 
up  quickly,  as  if  to  reach  her  room  unperceived;  but 
when  she  caught  sight  of  him  she  stopped,  her  head 
thrown  back  and  the  light  falling  on  her  blown  hair 
and  glowing  face. 

"Well?"  she  said,  smiling  up  at  him. 

"They  waited  for  you  all  the  afternoon  in  Washing 
ton  Square — the  boy  never  had  his  birthday,"  he  an 
swered. 

Her  colour  deepened,  but  she  instantly  rejoined: 
"Why,  what  happened?  Why  didn't  the  nurse  take 
him?" 

"You  said  you  were  coming  to  fetch  him,  so  she 
waited." 

"But  I  telephoned " 

He  said  to  himself:  "Is  that  the  lie?"  and  answered: 
"Where  from?" 

"Why,  the  studio,  of  course "  She  flung  her  cloak 

open,  as  if  to  attest  her  veracity.  "The  sitting  lasted 
longer  than  usual — there  was  something  about  the  dress 
he  couldn't  get — 

"But  I  thought  he  was  giving  a  tea." 

"He  had  tea  afterward;  he  always  does.  And  he 
asked  some  people  in  to  see  my  portrait.  That  detained 
[2191 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

me  too.  I  didn't  know  they  were  coming,  and  when 
they  turned  up  I  couldn't  rush  away.  It  would  have 
looked  as  if  I  didn't  like  the  picture."  She  paused  and 
they  gave  each  other  a  searching  simultaneous  glance. 
"Who  told  you  it  was  a  tea?"  she  asked. 

"Clare  Van  Degen.  I  saw  her  at  my  mother's." 

"So  you  weren't  unconsoled  after  all !" 

"The  nurse  didn't  get  any  message.  My  people  were 
awfully  disappointed;  and  the  poor  boy  has  cried  his 
eyes  out." 

"Dear  me!  What  a  fuss!  But  I  might  have  known 
my  message  wouldn't  be  delivered.  Everything  always 
happens  to  put  me  in  the  wrong  with  your  family." 

With  a  little  air  of  injured  pride  she  started  to  go  to 
her  room;  but  he  put  out  a  hand  to  detain  her. 

"You've  just  come  from  the  studio?" 

"Yes.  It  is  awfully  late?  I  must  go  and  dress.  We're 
dining  with  the  Ellings,  you  know." 

"I  know.  .  .  How  did  you  come?  In  a  cab?" 

She  faced  him  limpidly.  "No;  I  couldn't  find  one 
that  would  bring  me — so  Peter  gave  me  a  lift,  like  an 
angel.  I'm  blown  to  bits.  He  had  his  open  car." 

Her  colour  was  still  high,  and  Ralph  noticed  that 
her  lower  lip  twitched  a  little.  He  had  led  her  to  the 
point  they  had  reached  solely  to  be  able  to  say:  "If 
you're  straight  from  the  studio,  how  was  it  that  I  saw 
you  coming  down  from  Morningside? " 

Unless  he  asked  her  that  there  would  be  no  point 
[2201 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

in  his  cross-questioning,  and  he  would  have  sacrificed 
his  pride  without  a  purpose.  But  suddenly,  as  they 
stood  there  face  to  face,  almost  touching,  she  became 
something  immeasurably  alien  and  far  off,  and  the  ques 
tion  died  on  his  lips. 

"Is  that  all?"  she  asked  with  a  slight  smile. 

"Yes;  you'd  better  go  and  dress,"  he  said,  and  turned 
back  to  his  room. 

XVI 

THE  turnings  of  life  seldom  show  a  sign-post;  or 
rather,  though  the  sign  is  always  there,  it  is  usu 
ally  placed  some  distance  back,  like  the  notices  that 
give  warning  of  a  bad  hill  or  a  level  railway-crossing. 

Ralph  Marvell,  pondering  upon  this,  reflected  that 
for  him  the  sign  had  been  set,  more  than  three  years 
earlier,  in  an  Italian  ilex-grove.  That  day  his  life  had 
brimmed  over — so  he  had  put  it  at  the  time.  He  saw 
now  that  it  had  brimmed  over  indeed:  brimmed  to  the 
extent  of  leaving  the  cup  empty,  or  at  least  of  uncover 
ing  the  dregs  beneath  the  nectar.  He  knew  now  that 
he  should  never  hereafter  look  at  his  wife's  hand  with 
out  remembering  something  he  had  read  in  it  that  day. 
Its  surface-language  had  been  sweet  enough,  but  under 
the  rosy  lines  he  had  seen  the  warning  letters. 

Since  then  he  had  been  walking  with  a  ghost:  the 
miserable  ghost  of  his  illusion.  Only  he  had  somehow 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

vivified,  coloured,  substantiated  it,  by  the  force  of  his 
own  great  need — as  a  man  might  breathe  a  semblance 
of  life  into  a  dear  drowned  body  that  he  cannot  give 
up  for  dead.  All  this  came  to  him  with  aching  distinct 
ness  the  morning  after  his  talk  with  his  wife  on  the 
stairs.  He  had  accused  himself,  in  midnight  retrospect, 
of  having  failed  to  press  home  his  conclusion  because 
he  dared  not  face  the  truth.  But  he  knew  this  was  not 
the  case.  It  was  not  the  truth  he  feared,  it  was  another 
lie.  If  he  had  foreseen  a  chance  of  her  saying:  "Yes,  I 
was  with  Peter  Van  Degen,  and  for  the  reason  you 
think,"  he  would  have  put  it  to  the  touch,  stood  up  to 
the  blow  like  a  man;  but  he  knew  she  would  never  say 
that.  She  would  go  on  eluding  and  doubling,  watching 
him  as  he  watched  her;  and  at  that  game  she  was  sure 
to  beat  him  in  the  end. 

On  their  way  home  from  the  Elling  dinner  this  cer 
tainty  had  become  so  insufferable  that  it  nearly  es 
caped  him  in  the  cry:  "You  needn't  watch  me — I  shall 
never  again  watch  you!"  But  he  had  held  his  peace, 
knowing  she  would  not  understand.  How  little,  indeed, 
she  ever  understood,  had  been  made  clear  to  him  when, 
the  same  night,  he  had  followed  her  upstairs  through 
the  sleeping  house.  She  had  gone  on  ahead  while  he 
stayed  below  to  lock  doors  and  put  out  lights,  and 
he  had  supposed  her  to  be  already  in  her  room  when  he 
reached  the  upper  landing;  but  she  stood  there  waiting, 
in  the  spot  where  he  had  waited  for  her  a  few  hours 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

earlier.  She  had  shone  her  vividest  at  dinner,  with 
the  revolving  brilliancy  that  collective  approval  always 
struck  from  her;  and  the  glow  of  it  still  hung  on  her 
as  she  paused  there  in  the  dimness,  her  shining  cloak 
dropped  from  her  white  shoulders. 

"Ralphie "  she  began,  a  soft  hand  on  his  arm. 

He  stopped,  and  she  pulled  him  about  so  that  their 
faces  were  close,  and  he  saw  her  lips  curving  for  a  kiss. 
Every  line  of  her  face  sought  him,  from  the  sweep 
of  the  narrowed  eyelids  to  the  dimples  that  played 
away  from  her  smile.  His  eye  received  the  picture 
with  distinctness;  but  for  the  first  time  it  did  not  pass 
into  his  veins.  It  was  as  if  he  had  been  struck  with  a 
subtle  blindness  that  permitted  images  to  give  their 
colour  to  the  eye  but  communicated  nothing  to  the 
brain. 

"Good-night,"  he  said,  as  he  passed  on. 

When  a  man  felt  in  that  way  about  a  woman  he  was 
surely  in  a  position  to  deal  with  his  case  impartially. 
This  came  to  Ralph  as  the  joyless  solace  of  the  morn 
ing.  At  last  the  bandage  was  off  and  he  could  see.  And 
what  did  he  see?  Only  the  uselessness  of  driving  his 
wife  to  subterfuges  that  were  no  longer  necessary.  Was 
Van  Degen  her  lover?  Probably  not — the  suspicion  died 
as  it  rose.  She  would  not  take  more  risks  than  she  could 
help,  and  it  was  admiration,  not  love,  that  she  wanted. 
She  wanted  to  enjoy  herself,  and  her  conception  of 
enjoyment  was  publicity,  promiscuity — the  band,  the 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

banners,  the  crowd,  the  close  contact  of  covetous 
impulses,  and  the  sense  of  walking  among  them  in 
cool  security.  Any  personal  entanglement  might  mean 
"bother,"  and  bother  was  the  thing  she  most  abhorred. 
Probably,  as  the  queer  formula  went,  his  "honour"  was 
safe :  he  could  count  on  the  letter  of  her  fidelity.  At  the 
moment  the  conviction  meant  no  more  to  him  than  if  he 
had  been  assured  of  the  honesty  of  the  first  stranger 
he  met  in  the  street.  A  stranger — that  was  what  she  had 
always  been  to  him.  So  malleable  outwardly,  she  had 
remained  insensible  to  the  touch  of  the  heart. 

These  thoughts  accompanied  him  on  his  way  to 
business  the  next  morning.  Then,  as  the  routine  took 
him  back,  the  feeling  of  strangeness  diminished.  There 
he  was  again  at  his  daily  task — nothing  tangible  was 
altered.  He  was  there  for  the  same  purpose  as  yester 
day:  to  make  money  for  his  wife  and  child.  The  woman 
he  had  turned  from  on  the  stairs  a  few  hours  earlier  was 
still  his  wife  and  the  mother  of  Paul  Mar  veil.  She  was 
an  inherent  part  of  his  life;  the  inner  disruption  had  not 
resulted  in  any  outward  upheaval.  And  with  the  sense 
of  inevitableness  there  came  a  sudden  wave  of  pity. 
Poor  Undine !  She  was  what  the  gods  had  made  her — a 
creature  of  skin-deep  reactions,  a  mote  in  the  beam  of 
pleasure.  He  had  no  desire  to  "preach  down"  such  heart 
as  she  had — he  felt  only  a  stronger  wish  to  reach  it, 
teach  it,  move  it  to  something  of  the  pity  that  filled  his 
own.  They  were  fellow-victims  in  the  noyade  of  mar- 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

riage,  but  if  they  ceased  to  struggle  perhaps  the  drown 
ing  would  be  easier  for  both.  .  .  Meanwhile  the  first  of 
the  month  was  at  hand,  with  its  usual  batch  of  bills;  and 
there  was  no  time  to  think  of  any  struggle  less  pressing 
than  that  connected  with  paying  them.  .  . 

Undine  had  been  surprised,  and  a  little  disconcerted,  at 
her  husband's  acceptance  of  the  birthday  incident. 
Since  the  resetting  of  her  bridal  ornaments  the  relations 
between  Washington  Square  and  West  End  Avenue  had 
been  more  and  more  strained;  and  the  silent  disapproval 
of  the  Marvell  ladies  was  more  irritating  to  her 
than  open  recrimination.  She  knew  how  keenly  Ralph 
must  feel  her  last  slight  to  his  family,  and  she  had  been 
frightened  when  she  guessed  that  he  had  seen  her  re 
turning  with  Van  Degen.  He  must  have  been  watching 
from  the  window,  since,  credulous  as  he  always  was, 
he  evidently  had  a  reason  for  not  believing  her  when 
she  told  him  she  had  come  from  the  studio.  There  was 
therefore  something  both  puzzling  and  disturbing  in 
his  silence;  and  she  made  up  her  mind  that  it  must  be 
either  explained  or  cajoled  away. 

These  thoughts  were  with  her  as  she  dressed;  but  at 
the  fillings'  they  fled  like  ghosts  before  light  and 
laughter.  She  had  never  been  more  open  to  the  sug 
gestions  of  immediate  enjoyment.  At  last  she  had 
reached  the  envied  situation  of  the  pretty  woman  with 
whom  society  must  reckon,  and  if  she  had  only  had  the 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

means  to  live  up  to  her  opportunities  she  would  have 
been  perfectly  content  with  life,  with  herself  and  her 
husband.  She  still  thought  Ralph  "sweet"  when  she 
was  not  bored  by  his  good  advice  or  exasperated  by 
his  inability  to  pay  her  bills.  The  question  of  money 
was  what  chiefly  stood  between  them;  and  now  that 
this  was  momentarily  disposed  of  by  Van  Degen's  offkr 
she  looked  at  Ralph  more  kindly — she  even  felt  a  re 
turn  of  her  first  impersonal  affection  for  him.  Everybody 
could  see  that  Clare  Van  Degen  was  "gone"  on  him, 
and  Undine  always  liked  to  know  that  what  belonged 
to  her  was  coveted  by  others. 

Her  reassurance  had  been  fortified  by  the  news 
she  had  heard  at  the  Elling  dinner — the  published  fact 
of  Harmon  B.  DriscolPs  unexpected  victory.  The  Ara 
rat  investigation  had  been  mysteriously  stopped — 
quashed,  in  the  language  of  the  law — and  Elmer  Mof- 
fatt  "turned  down,"  as  Van  Degen  (who  sat  next  to 
her)  expressed  it. 

"I  don't  believe  we'll  ever  hear  of  that  gentleman 
again,"  he  said  contemptuously;  and  their  eyes  crossed 
gaily  as  she  exclaimed:  "Then  they'll  give  the  fancy 
ball  after  all?" 

"I  should  have  given  you  one  anyhow — shouldn't 
you  have  liked  that  as  well?" 

"Oh,  you  can  give  me  one  too!"  she  returned;  and 
he  bent  closer  to  say:  "By  Jove,  I  will — and  anything 
else  you  want." 

[226] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

But  on  the  way  home  her  fears  revived.  Ralph's  in 
difference  struck  her  as  unnatural.  He  had  not  returned 
to  the  subject  of  Paul's  disappointment,  had  not  even 
asked  her  to  write  a  word  of  excuse  to  his  mother. 
Van  Degen's  way  of  looking  at  her  at  dinner — he  was 
incapable  of  graduating  his  glances — had  made  it  plain 
that  the  favour  she  had  accepted  would  necessitate  her 
being  more  conspicuously  in  his  company  (though  she 
was  still  resolved  that  it  should  be  on  just  such  terms 
as  she  chose) ;  and  it  would  be  extremely  troublesome  if, 
at  this  juncture,  Ralph  should  suddenly  turn  suspicious 
and  secretive. 

Undine,  hitherto,  had  found  more  benefits  than 
drawbacks  in  her  marriage;  but  now  the  tie  began  to 
gall.  It  was  hard  to  be  criticized  for  every  grasp  at 
opportunity  by  a  man  so  avowedly  unable  to  do  the 
reaching  for  her!  Ralph  had  gone  into  business  to  make 
more  money  for  her;  but  it  was  plain  that  the  "more" 
would  never  be  much,  and  that  he  would  not  achieve 
the  quick  rise  to  affluence  which  was  man's  natural 
tribute  to  woman's  merits.  Undine  felt  herself  trapped, 
deceived;  and  it  was  intolerable  that  the  agent  of  her 
disillusionment  should  presume  to  be  the  critic  of  her 
conduct. 

Her  annoyance,  however,  died  out  with  her  fears. 
Ralph,  the  morning  after  the  Elling  dinner,  went  his 
way  as  usual,  and  after  nerving  herself  for  the  explo 
sion  which  did  not  come  she  set  down  his  indifference 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

to  the  dulling  effect  of  "business."  No  wonder  poor 
women  whose  husbands  were  always  "down- town"  had 
to  look  elsewhere  for  sympathy!  Van  Degen's  cheque 
helped  to  calm  her,  and  the  weeks  whirled  on  toward 
the  Driscoll  ball. 

The  ball  was  as  brilliant  as  she  had  hoped,  and  her 
own  part  in  it  as  thrilling  as  a  page  from  one  of  the 
"society  novels"  with  which  she  had  cheated  the 
monotony  of  Apex  days.  She  had  no  time  for  reading 
now:  every  hour  was  packed  with  what  she  would  have 
called  life,  and  the  intensity  of  her  sensations  culmi 
nated  on  that  triumphant  evening.  What  could  be  more 
delightful  than  to  feel  that,  while  all  the  women  envied 
her  dress,  the  men  did  not  so  much  as  look  at  it?  Their 
admiration  was  all  for  herself,  and  her  beauty  deepened 
under  it  as  flowers  take  a  warmer  colour  in  the  rays  of 
sunset.  Only  Van  Degen's  glance  weighed  on  her  a  little 
too  heavily.  Was  it  possible  that  he  might  become  a 
"bother"  less  negligible  than  those  he  had  relieved  her 
of?  Undine  was  not  greatly  alarmed — she  still  had  full 
faith  in  her  powers  of  self-defense;  but  she  disliked  to 
feel  the  least  crease  in  the  smooth  surface  of  existence. 
She  had  always  been  what  her  parents  called  "  sensitive." 

As  the  winter  passed,  material  cares  once  more  as 
sailed  her.  In  the  thrill  of  liberation  produced  by  Van 
Degen's  gift  she  had  been  imprudent — had  launched 
into  fresh  expenses.  Not  that  she  accused  herself  of 
extravagance:  she  had  done  nothing  not  really  neces- 
[228] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

sary.  The  drawing-room,  for  instance,  cried  out  to  be 
"done  over,"  and  Popple,  who  was  an  authority  on 
decoration,  had  shown  her,  with  a  few  strokes  of  his 
pencil,  how  easily  it  might  be  transformed  into  a  French 
"period"  room,  all  curves  and  cupids:  just  the  setting 
for  a  pretty  woman  and  his  portrait  of  her.  But  Undine, 
still  hopeful  of  leaving  West  End  Avenue,  had  heroic 
ally  resisted  the  suggestion,  and  contented  herself  with 
the  renewal  of  the  curtains  and  carpet,  and  the  pur 
chase  of  some  fragile  gilt  chairs  which,  as  she  told 
Ralph,  would  be  "so  much  to  the  good"  when  they 
moved — the  explanation,  as  she  made  it,  seemed  an 
additional  evidence  of  her  thrift. 

Partly  as  a  result  of  these  exertions  she  had  a  "ner 
vous  breakdown"  toward  the  middle  of  the  winter,  and 
her  physician  having  ordered  massage  and  a  daily  drive 
it  became  necessary  to  secure  Mrs.  Heeny's  attendance 
and  to  engage  a  motor  by  the  month.  Other  unforeseen 
expenses — the  bills,  that,  at  such  times,  seem  to  run 
up  without  visible  impulsion — were  added  to  by  a 
severe  illness  of  little  Paul's:  a  long  costly  illness,  with 
three  nurses  and  frequent  consultations.  During  these 
days  Ralph's  anxiety  drove  him  to  what  seemed  to 
Undine  foolish  excesses  of  expenditure  and  when  the 
boy  began  to  get  better  the  doctors  advised  country 
air.  Ralph  at  once  hired  a  small  house  at  Tuxedo  and 
Undine  of  course  accompanied  her  son  to  the  country; 
but  she  spent  only  the  Sundays  with  him,  running  up 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

to  town  during  the  week  to  be  with  her  husband,  as 
she  explained.  This  necessitated  the  keeping  up  of 
two  households,  and  even  for  so  short  a  time  the 
strain  on  Ralph's  purse  was  severe.  So  it  came  about 
that  the  bill  for  the  fancy-dress  was  still  unpaid,  and 
Undine  left  to  wonder  distractedly  what  had  become 
of  Van  Degen's  money.  That  Van  Degen  seemed  also 
to  wonder  was  becoming  unpleasantly  apparent:  his 
cheque  had  evidently  not  brought  in  the  return  he 
expected,  and  he  put  his  grievance  to  her  frankly  one 
day  when  he  motored  down  to  lunch  at  Tuxedo. 

They  were  sitting,  after  luncheon,  in  the  low-ceilinged 
drawing-room  to  which  Undine  had  adapted  her  usual 
background  of  cushions,  bric-a-brac  and  flowers — since 
one  must  make  one's  setting  "home-like,"  however  little 
one's  habits  happened  to  correspond  with  that  particular 
effect.  Undine,  conscious  of  the  intimate  charm  of  her 
mise-en-scene,  and  of  the  recovered  freshness  and  bloom 
which  put  her  in  harmony  with  it,  had  never  been  more 
sure  of  her  power  to  keep  her  friend  in  the  desired  state 
of  adoring  submission.  But  Peter,  as  he  grew  more 
adoring,  became  less  submissive;  and  there  came  a  mo 
ment  when  she  needed  all  her  wits  to  save  the  situation. 
It  was  easy  enough  to  rebuff  him,  the  easier  as  his 
physical  proximity  always  roused  in  her  a  vague  instinct 
of  resistance;  but  it  was  hard  so  to  temper  the  rebuff 
with  promise  that  the  game  of  suspense  should  still  de 
lude  him.  He  put  it  to  her  at  last,  standing  squarely 
[230] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

before  her,  his  batrachian  sallowness  unpleasantly 
flushed,  and  primitive  man  looking  out  of  the  eyes  from 
which  a  frock-coated  gentleman  usually  pined  at  her. 

"Look  here — the  installment  plan's  all  right;  but 
ain't  you  a  bit  behind  even  on  that?"  (She  had 
brusquely  eluded  a  nearer  approach.)  "Anyhow,  I 
think  I'd  rather  let  the  interest  accumulate  for  a  while. 
This  is  good-bye  till  I  get  back  from  Europe." 

The  announcement  took  her  by  surprise.  "Europe? 
Why,  when  are  you  sailing?" 

"On  the  first  of  April:  good  day  for  a  fool  to  acknowl 
edge  his  folly.  I'm  beaten,  and  I'm  running  away." 

She  sat  looking  down,  her  hand  absently  occupied 
with  the  twist  of  pearls  he  had  given  her.  In  a  flash  she 
saw  the  peril  of  this  departure.  Once  off  on  the  Sor 
ceress,  he  was  lost  to  her — the  power  of  old  associations 
would  prevail.  Yet  if  she  were  as  "nice"  to  him  as  he 
asked — "nice"  enough  to  keep  him — the  end  might 
not  be  much  more  to  her  advantage.  Hitherto  she  had 
let  herself  drift  on  the  current  of  their  adventure,  but 
she  now  saw  what  port  she  had  half -unconsciously  been 
trying  for.  If  she  had  striven  so  hard  to  hold  him,  had 
"played"  him  with  such  patience  and  such  skill,  it 
was  for  something  more  than  her  passing  amusement 
and  convenience:  for  a  purpose  the  more  tenaciously 
cherished  that  she  had  not  dared  name  it  to  herself.  In 
the  light  of  this  discovery  she  saw  the  need  of  feigning 
complete  indifference. 

[231] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Ah,  you  happy  man!  It's  good-bye  indeed,  then," 
she  threw  back  at  him,  lifting  a  plaintive  smile  to  his 
frown. 

"Oh,  you'll  turn  up  in  Paris  later,  I  suppose — to  get 
your  things  for  Newport." 

"Paris?  Newport?  They're  not  on  my  map!  When 
Ralph  can  get  away  we  shall  go  to  the  Adirondacks  for 
the  boy.  I  hope  I  shan't  need  Paris  clothes  there!  It 
doesn't  matter,  at  any  rate,"  she  ended,  laughing,  "be 
cause  nobody  I  care  about  will  see  me." 

Van  Degen  echoed  her  laugh.  "Oh,  come — that's 
rough  on  Ralph!" 

She  looked  down  with  a  slight  increase  of  colour.  "I 
oughtn't  to  have  said  it,  ought  I?  But  the  fact  is  I'm 
unhappy — and  a  little  hurt — 

"Unhappy?  Hurt?"  He  was  at  her  side  again. 
"Why,  what's  wrong?" 

She  lifted  her  eyes  with  a  grave  look.  "I  thought 
you'd  be  sorrier  to  leave  me." 

"Oh,  it  won't  be  for  long — it  needn't  be,  you  know." 
He  was  perceptibly  softening.  "It's  damnable,  the  way 
you're  tied  down.  Fancy  rotting  all  summer  in  the  Adi 
rondacks!  Why  do  you  stand  it?  You  oughtn't  to  be 
bound  for  life  by  a  girl's  mistake." 

The  lashes  trembled  slightly  on  her  cheek.  "Aren't 

we  all  bound  by  our  mistakes — we  women?  Don't  let 

us  talk  of  such  things!  Ralph  would  never  let  me  go 

abroad  without  him."  She  paused,  and  then,  with  a 

[232] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

quick  upward  sweep  of  the  lids:  "After  all,  it's  better 
it  should  be  good-bye — since  I'm  paying  for  another 
mistake  in  being  so  unhappy  at  your  going/' 

"Another  mistake?  Why  do  you  call  it  that?" 

"Because  I've  misunderstood  you — or  you  me." 
She  continued  to  smile  at  him  wistfully.  "And  some 
things  are  best  mended  by  a  break." 

He  met  her  smile  with  a  loud  sigh — she  could  feel 
him  in  the  meshes  again.  "7s  it  to  be  a  break  between 
us?" 

"Haven't  you  just  said  so?  Anyhow,  it  might  as 
well  be,  since  we  shan't  be  in  the  same  place  again  for 
months." 

The  frock-coated  gentleman  once  more  languished 
from  his  eyes:  she  thought  she  trembled  on  the  edge  of 
victory.  "Hang  it,"  he  broke  out,  "you  ought  to  have 
a  change — you're  looking  awfully  pulled  down.  Why 
can't  you  coax  your  mother  to  run  over  to  Paris  with 
you?  Ralph  couldn't  object  to  that." 

She  shook  her  head.  "I  don't  believe  she  could 
afford  it,  even  if  I  could  persuade  her  to  leave  father. 
You  know  father  hasn't  done  very  well  lately:  I 
shouldn't  like  to  ask  him  for  the  money." 

"You're  so  confoundedly  proud!"  He  was  edging 
nearer.  "It  would  all  be  so  easy  if  you'd  only  be  a  little 
fond  of  me.  .  ." 

She  froze  to  her  sofa-end.  "We  women  can't  repair 
our  mistakes.  Don't  make  me  more  miserable  by  re 
minding  me  of  mine." 

[233] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Oh,  nonsense!  There's  nothing  cash  won't  do.  Why 
won't  you  let  me  straighten  things  out  for  you?" 

Her  colour  rose  again,  and  she  looked  him  quickly 
and  consciously  in  the  eye.  It  was  time  to  play  her 
last  card.  "You  seem  to  forget  that  I  am — married," 
she  said. 

Van  Degen  was  silent — for  a  moment  she  thought 
he  was  swaying  to  her  in  the  flush  of  surrender.  But  he 
remained  doggedly  seated,  meeting  her  look  with  an 
odd  clearing  of  his  heated  gaze,  as  if  a  shrewd  business 
man  had  suddenly  replaced  the  pining  gentleman  at 
the  window. 

"Hang  it — so  am  I!"  he  rejoined;  and  Undine  saw 
that  in  the  last  issue  he  was  still  the  stronger  of  the 
two. 

XVII 

NOTHING  was  bitterer  to  her  than  to  confess  to 
herself  the  failure  of  her  power;  but  her  last  talk 
with  Van  Degen  had  taught  her  a  lesson  almost  worth 
the  abasement.  She  saw  the  mistake  she  had  made 
in  taking  money  from  him,  and  understood  that  if 
she  drifted  into  repeating  that  mistake  her  future 
would  be  irretrievably  compromised.  What  she  wanted 
was  not  a  hand-to-mouth  existence  of  precarious  in 
trigue  :  to  one  with  her  gifts  the  privileges  of  life  should 
come  openly.  Already  in  her  short  experience  she  had 
seen  enough  of  the  women  who  sacrifice  future  security 
f  2341 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

for  immediate  success,  and  she  meant  to  lay  solid  foun 
dations  before  she  began  to  build  up  the  light  super 
structure  of  enjoyment. 

Nevertheless  it  was  galling  to  see  Van  Degen  leave, 
and  to  know  that  for  the  time  he  had  broken  away 
from  her.  Over  a  nature  so  insensible  to  the  spells  of  / 
memory,  the  visible  and  tangible  would  always  prevail. 
If  she  could  have  been  with  him  again  in  Paris,  where, 
in  the  shining  spring  days,  every  sight  and  sound  min 
istered  to  such  influences,  she  was  sure  she  could  have 
regained  her  hold.  And  the  sense  of  frustration  was  in 
tensified  by  the  fact  that  every  one  she  knew  was  to  be 
there:  her  potential  rivals  were  crowding  the  east- 
bound  steamers.  New  York  was  a  desert,  and  Ralph's 
seeming  unconsciousness  of  the  fact  increased  her  re 
sentment.  She  had  had  but  one  chance  at  Europe  since 
her  marriage,  and  that  had  been  wasted  through  her 
husband's  unaccountable  perversity.  She  knew  now  with 
what  packed  hours  of  Paris  and  London  they  had  paid 
for  their  empty  weeks  in  Italy. 

Meanwhile  the  long  months  of  the  New  York  spring 
stretched  out  before  her  in  all  their  social  vacancy  to 
the  measureless  blank  of  a  summer  in  the  Adirondacks. 
In  her  girlhood  she  had  plumbed  the  dim  depths  of 
such  summers;  but  then  she  had  been  sustained  by  the 
hope  of  bringing  some  capture  to  the  surface.  Now  she 
knew  better:  there  were  no  "finds"  for  her  in  that  di 
rection.  The  people  she  wanted  would  be  at  Newport 
[2351 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

or  in  Europe,  and  she  was  too  resolutely  bent  on  a 
definite  object,  too  sternly  animated  by  her  father's 
business  instinct,  to  turn  aside  in  quest  of  casual  dis 
tractions. 

The  chief  difficulty  in  the  way  of  her  attaining  any 
distant  end  had  always  been  her  reluctance  to  plod 
through  the  intervening  stretches  of  dulness  and  pri 
vation.  She  had  begun  to  see  this,  but  she  could  not 
always  master  the  weakness:  never  had  she  stood  in 
greater  need  of  Mrs.  Heeny's  "Go  slow,  Undine!"  Her 
imagination  was  incapable  of  long  flights.  She  could 
not  cheat  her  impatience  with  the  mirage  of  far-off 
satisfactions,  and  for  the  moment  present  and  future 
seemed  equally  void.  But  her  desire  to  go  to  Europe 
and  to  rejoin  the  little  New  York  world  that  was  re 
forming  itself  in  London  and  Paris  was  fortified  by 
reasons  which  seemed  urgent  enough  to  justify  an 
appeal  to  her  father. 

She  went  down  to  his  office  to  plead  her  case,  fearing 
Mrs.  Spragg's  intervention.  For  some  time  past  Mr. 
Spragg  had  been  rather  continuously  overworked,  and 
the  strain  was  beginning  to  tell  on  him.  He  had  never 
quite  regained,  in  New  York,  the  financial  security  of 
his  Apex  days.  Since  he  had  changed  his  base  of  opera 
tions  his  affairs  had  followed  an  uncertain  course,  and 
Undine  suspected  that  his  breach  with  his  old  political 
ally,  the  Representative  Rolliver  who  had  seen  him 
through  the  muddiest  reaches  of  the  Pure  Water  Move, 
[236] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

was  not  unconnected  with  his  failure  to  get  a  footing 
in  Wall  Street.  But  all  this  was  vague  and  shadowy  to 
her.  Even  had  "business"  been  less  of  a  mystery,  she 
was  too  much  absorbed  in  her  own  affairs  to  project 
herself  into  her  father's  case;  and  she  thought  she  was 
sacrificing  enough  to  delicacy  of  feeling  in  sparing  him 
the  "bother"  of  Mrs.  Spragg's  opposition. 

When  she  came  to  him  with  a  grievance  he  always 
heard  her  out  with  the  same  mild  patience;  but  the 
long  habit  of  "managing"  him  had  made  her,  in  his 
own  language,  "discount"  this  tolerance,  and  when  she 
ceased  to  speak  her  heart  throbbed  with  suspense  as  he 
leaned  back,  twirling  an  invisible  toothpick  under  his 
sallow  moustache.  Presently  he  raised  a  hand  to  stroke 
the  limp  beard  in  which  the  moustache  was  merged; 
then  he  groped  for  the  Masonic  emblem  that  had  lost 
itself  in  one  of  the  folds  of  his  depleted  waistcoat. 

He  seemed  to  fish  his  answer  from  the  same  rusty 
depths,  for  as  his  fingers  closed  about  the  trinket  he 
said:  "Yes,  the  heated  term  is  trying  in  New  York. 
That's  why  the  Fresh  Air  Fund  pulled  my  last  dollar 
out  of  me  last  week." 

Undine  frowned:  there  was  nothing  more  irritating, 
in  these  encounters  with  her  father,  than  his  habit  of 
opening  the  discussion  with  a  joke. 

"I  wish  you'd  understand  that  I'm  serious,  father. 
I've  never  been  strong  since  the  baby  was  born,  and 
I  need  a  change.  But  it's  not  only  that :  there  are  other 
reasons  for  my  wanting  to  go." 
[237] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Mr.  Spragg  still  held  to  his  mild  tone  of  banter.  "I 
never  knew  you  short  on  reasons,  Undie.  Trouble  is 
you  don't  always  know  other  people's  when  you  see 
'em." 

His  daughter's  lips  tightened.  "I  know  your  reasons 
when  I  see  them,  father:  I've  heard  them  often  enough. 
But  you  can't  know  mine  because  I  haven't  told  you — 
not  the  real  ones." 

"  Jehoshaphat !  I  thought  they  were  all  real  as  long 
as  you  had  a  use  for  them." 

Experience  had  taught  her  that  such  protracted  tri 
fling  usually  concealed  an  exceptional  vigour  of  resist 
ance,  and  the  suspense  strengthened  her  determination. 

"My  reasons  are  all  real  enough,"  she  answered; 
"but  there's  one  more  serious  than  the  others." 

Mr.  Spragg's  brows  began  to  jut.  "More  bills?" 

"No."  She  stretched  out  her  hand  and  began  to 
finger  the  dusty  objects  on  his  desk.  "I'm  unhappy  at 
home." 

"Unhappy !"  His  start  overturned  the  gorged 

waste-paper  basket  and  shot  a  shower  of  paper  across 
the  rug.  He  stooped  to  put  the  basket  back;  then 
he  turned  his  slow  fagged  eyes  on  his  daughter.  "  Why, 
he  worships  the  ground  you  walk  on,  Undie." 

"That's  not  always  a  reason,  for  a  woman "  It 

was  the  answer  she  would  have  given  to  Popple  or  Van 
Degen,  but  she  saw  in  an  instant  the  mistake  of  think 
ing  it  would  impress  her  father.  In  the  atmosphere  of 
sentimental  casuistry  to  which  she  had  become  accus- 
[  2381 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

tomed,  she  had  forgotten  that  Mr.  Spragg's  private  rule 
of  conduct  was  as  simple  as  his  business  morality  was 
complicated. 

He  glowered  at  her  under  thrust-out  brows.  "It 
isn't  a  reason,  isn't  it?  I  can  seem  to  remember  the  time 
when  you  used  to  think  it  was  equal  to  a  whole  carload 
of  whitewash." 

She  blushed  a  bright  red,  and  her  own  brows  were 
levelled  at  his  above  her  stormy  steel-grey  eyes.  The 
sense  of  her  blunder  made  her  angrier  with  him,  and 
more  ruthless. 

"I  can't  expect  you  to  understand — you  never  have, 
you  or  mother,  when  it  came  to  my  feelings.  I  suppose 
some  people  are  born  sensitive — I  can't  imagine  any- 
body'd  choose  to  be  so.  Because  I've  been  too  proud  to 
complain  you've  taken  it  for  granted  that  I  was  per 
fectly  happy.  But  my  marriage  was  a  mistake  from  the 
beginning;  and  Ralph  feels  just  as  I  do  about  it.  His 
people  hate  me,  they've  always  hated  me;  and  he  looks 
at  everything  as  they  do.  They've  never  forgiven  me 
for  his  having  had  to  go  into  business — with  their  aris 
tocratic  ideas  they  look  down  on  a  man  who  works  for 
his  living.  Of  course  it's  all  right  for  you  to  do  it, 
because  you're  not  a  Marvell  or  a  Dagonet;  but  they 
think  Ralph  ought  to  just  lie  back  and  let  you  support 
the  baby  and  me." 

This  time  she  had  found  the  right  note:  she  knew  it 
by  the  tightening  of  her  father's  slack  muscles  and  the 
sudden  straightening  of  his  back. 
[  239  ] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"By  George,  he  pretty  near  does!"  he  exclaimed, 
bringing  down  his  fist  on  the  desk.  "They  haven't  been 
taking  it  out  of  you  about  that,  have  they?" 

"They  don't  fight  fair  enough  to  say  so.  They  just 
egg  him  on  to  turn  against  me.  They  only  consented  to 
his  marrying  me  because  they  thought  you  were  so 
crazy  about  the  match  you'd  give  us  everything,  and 
he'd  have  nothing  to  do  but  sit  at  home  and  write 
books." 

Mr.  Spragg  emitted  a  derisive  groan.  "From  what  I 
hear  of  the  amount  of  business  he's  doing  I  guess  he 
could  keep  the  Poet's  Corner  going  right  along.  I  sup 
pose  the  old  man  was  right — he  hasn't  got  it  in  him  to 
make  money." 

"Of  course  not;  he  wasn't  brought  up  to  it,  and  in 
his  heart  of  hearts  he's  ashamed  of  having  to  do  it. 
He  told  me  it  was  killing  a  little  more  of  him  every  day." 

"Do  they  back  him  up  in  that  kind  of  talk?" 

"They  back  him  up  in  everything.  Their  ideas  are 
all  different  from  ours.  They  look  down  on  us — can't 
you  see  that?  Can't  you  guess  how  they  treat  me  from 
the  way  they've  acted  to  you  and  mother?" 

He  met  this  with  a  puzzled  stare.  "The  way  they've 
acted  to  me  and  mother?  Why,  we  never  so  much  as  set 
eyes  on  them." 

"That's  just  what  I  mean!  I  don't  believe  they've 

even  called  on  mother  this  year,  have  they?  Last  year 

they  just  left  their  cards  without  asking.    And  why 

do  you  suppose  they  never  invite  you  to  dine?  In  their 

[240] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

set  lots  of  people  older  than  you  and  mother  dine 
out  every  night  of  the  winter — society's  full  of  them. 
The  Marvells  are  ashamed  to  have  you  meet  their 
friends:  that's  the  reason.  They're  ashamed  to  have 
it  known  that  Ralph  married  an  Apex  girl,  and  that  you 
and  mother  haven't  always  had  your  own  servants  and 
carriages;  and  Ralph's  ashamed  of  it  too,  now  he's  got 
over  being  crazy  about  me.  If  he  was  free  I  believe  he'd 
turn  round  to-morrow  and  marry  that  Ray  girl  his 
mother's  saving  up  for  him." 

Mr.  Spragg  listened  with  a  heavy  brow  and  pushed- 
out  lip.  His  daughter's  outburst  seemed  at  last  to  have 
roused  him  to  a  faint  resentment.  After  she  had 
ceased  to  speak  he  remained  silent,  twisting  an  inky 
penhandle  between  his  fingers;  then  he  said:  "I  guess 
mother  and  I  can  worry  along  without  having  Ralph's 
relatives  drop  in;  but  I'd  like  to  make  it  clear  to  them 
that  if  you  came  from  Apex  your  income  came  from 
there  too.  I  presume  they'd  be  sorry  if  Ralph  was  left 
to  support  you  on  his." 

She  saw  that  she  had  scored  in  the  first  part  of 
the  argument,  but  every  watchful  nerve  reminded 
her  that  the  hardest  stage  was  still  ahead. 

"Oh,  they're  willing  enough  he  should  take  your 
money — that's  only  natural,  they  think." 

A  chuckle  sounded  deep  down  under  Mr.  Spragg's 
loose  collar.  "There  seems  to  be  practical  unanimity 
on  that  point,"  he  observed.  "But  I  don't  see,"  he 
[241] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

continued,  jerking  round  his  bushy  brows  on  her," how 
going  to  Europe  is  going  to  help  you  out." 

Undine  leaned  close  enough  for  her  lowered  voice  to 
reach  him.  "Can't  you  understand  that,  knowing  how 
they  all  feel  about  me — and  how  Ralph  feels — I'd  give 
almost  anything  to  get  away?" 

Her  father  looked  at  her  compassionately.  "I  guess 
most  of  us  feel  that  once  in  a  way  when  we're  young, 
Undine.  Later  on  you'll  see  going  away  ain't  much  use 
when  you've  got  to  turn  round  and  come  back." 

She  nodded  at  him  with  close-pressed  lips,  like  a 
child  in  possession  of  some  solemn  secret. 

"That's  just  it — that's  the  reason  I'm  so  wild  to  go; 
because  it  might  mean  I  wouldn't  ever  have  to  come 
back." 

"Not  come  back?  What  on  earth  are  you  talking 
about?" 

"It  might  mean  that  I  could  get  free — begin  over 
again.  .  ." 

He  had  pushed  his  seat  back  with  a  sudden  jerk 
and  cut  her  short  by  striking  his  palm  on  the  arm  of 
the  chair. 

"For  the  Lord's  sake,  Undine — do  you  know  what 
you're  saying?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know."  She  gave  him  back  a  confident 
smile.  "If  I  can  get  away  soon — go  straight  over  to 
Paris  .  .  .  there's  some  one  there  who'd  do  anything  .  .  . 
who  could  do  anything  ...  if  I  was  free  ..." 
[2421 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Mr.  Spragg's  hands  continued  to  grasp  his  chair- 
arms.  "Good  God,  Undine  Mar  veil — are  you  sitting 
there  in  your  sane  senses  and  talking  to  me  of  what 
you  could  do  if  you  were  free?" 

Their  glances  met  in  an  interval  of  speechless  com 
munion;  but  Undine  did  not  shrink  from  her  father's 
eyes  and  when  she  lowered  her  own  it  seemed  to  be  only 
because  there  was  nothing  left  for  them  to  say. 

"  I  know  just  what  I  could  do  if  I  were  free.  I  could 
marry  the  right  man,"  she  answered  boldly. 

He  met  her  with  a  murmur  of  helpless  irony.  "The 
right  man?  The  right  man?  Haven't  you  had  enough 
of  trying  for  him  yet?" 

As  he  spoke  the  door  behind  them  opened,  and  Mr. 
Spragg  looked  up  abruptly. 

The  stenographer  stood  on  the  threshold,  and  above 
her  shoulder  Undine  perceived  the  ingratiating  grin  of 
Elmer  Moffatt. 

"'A  little  farther  lend  thy  guiding  hand'— but  I 
guess  I  can  go  the  rest  of  the  way  alone,"  he  said,  in 
sinuating  himself  through  the  doorway  with  an  airy 
gesture  of  dismissal;  then  he  turned  to  Mr.  Spragg 
and  Undine. 

"I  agree  entirely  with  Mrs.  Marvell — and  I'm  happy 
to  have  the  opportunity  of  telling  her  so,"  he  pro 
claimed,  holding  his  hand  out  gallantly. 

Undine  stood  up  with  a  laugh.  "It  sounded  like  old 
times,  I  suppose — you  thought  father  and  I  were  quar- 
[243] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

relling?  But  we  never  quarrel  any  more:  he  always 
agrees  with  me."  She  smiled  at  Mr.  Spragg  and  turned 
her  shining  eyes  on  Moffatt. 

"I  wish  that  treaty  had  been  signed  a  few  years 
sooner!"  the  latter  rejoined  in  his  usual  tone  of  hu 
morous  familiarity. 

Undine  had  not  met  him  since  her  marriage,  and  of 
late  the  adverse  turn  of  his  fortunes  had  carried  him 
quite  beyond  her  thoughts.  But  his  actual  presence 
was  always  stimulating,  and  even  through  her  self- 
absorption  she  was  struck  by  his  air  of  almost  defiant 
prosperity.  He  did  not  look  like  a  man  who  has  been 
beaten;  or  rather  he  looked  like  a  man  who  does  not 
know  when  he  is  beaten;  and  his  eye  had  the  gleam  of 
mocking  confidence  that  had  carried  him  unabashed 
through  his  lowest  hours  at  Apex. 

"I  presume  you're  here  to  see  me  on  business?"  Mr. 
Spragg  enquired,  rising  from  his  chair  with  a  glance 
that  seemed  to  ask  his  daughter's  silence. 

"Why,  yes,  Senator,"  rejoined  Moffatt,  who  was 
given,  in  playful  moments,  to  the  bestowal  of  titles 
high-sounding.  "At  least  I'm  here  to  ask  you  a  little 
question  that  may  lead  to  business." 

Mr.  Spragg  crossed  the  office  and  held  open  the  door. 
"Step  this  way,  please,"  he  said,  guiding  Moffatt  out 
before  him,  though  the  latter  hung  back  to  exclaim: 
"No  family  secrets,  Mrs.  Marvell — anybody  can  turn 
the  fierce  white  light  on  me!" 
[2441 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

With  the  closing  of  the  door  Undine's  thoughts  turned 
back  to  her  own  preoccupations.  It  had  not  struck  her 
as  incongruous  that  Moffatt  should  have  business  deal 
ings  with  her  father:  she  was  even  a  little  surprised  that 
Mr.  Spragg  should  still  treat  him  so  coldly.  But  she 
had  no  time  to  give  to  such  considerations.  Her  own 
difficulties  were  too  importunately  present  to  her.  She 
moved  restlessly  about  the  office,  listening  to  the  rise 
and  fall  of  the  two  voices  on  the  other  side  of  the  parti 
tion  without  once  wondering  what  they  were  discussing. 

What  should  she  say  to  her  father  when  he  came 
back — what  argument  was  most  likely  to  prevail  with 
him?  If  he  really  had  no  money  to  give  her  she  was  im 
prisoned  fast — Van  Degen  was  lost  to  her,  and  the  old 
life  must  go  on  interminably.  .  .  In  her  nervous  pacings 
she  paused  before  the  blotched  looking-glass  that  hung 
in  a  corner  of  the  office  under  a  steel  engraving  of  Daniel 
Webster.  Even  that  defective  surface  could  not  dis 
figure  her,  and  she  drew  fresh  hope  from  the  sight  of 
her  beauty.  Her  few  weeks  of  ill-health  had  given  her 
cheeks  a  subtler  curve  and  deepened  the  shadows  be 
neath  her  eyes,  and  she  was  handsomer  than  before  her 
marriage.  No,  Van  Degen  was  not  lost  to  her  even !  From 
narrowed  lids  to  parted  lips  her  face  was  swept  by  a 
smile  like  refracted  sunlight.  He  was  not  lost  to  her 
while  she  could  smile  like  that!  Besides,  even  if  her 
father  had  no  money,  there  were  always  mysterious 
ways  of  "raising"  it — in  the  old  Apex  days  he  had 
[245  ] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

often  boasted  of  such  feats.  As  the  hope  rose  her  eyes 
widened  trustfully,  and  this  time  the  smile  that  flowed 
up  to  them  was  as  limpid  as  a  child's.  That  was  the  way 
her  father  liked  her  to  look  at  him.  .  . 

The  door  opened,  and  she  heard  Mr.  Spragg  say  be 
hind  her:  "No,  sir,  I  won't— that's  final." 

He  came  in  alone,  with  a  brooding  face,  and  lowered 
himself  heavily  into  his  chair.  It  was  plain  that  the 
talk  between  the  two  men  had  had  an  abrupt  ending. 
Undine  looked  at  her  father  with  a  passing  flicker  of 
curiosity.  Certainly  it  was  an  odd  coincidence  that 
Moffatt  should  have  called  while  she  was  there.  .  . 

"What  did  he  want?"  she  asked,  glancing  back  to 
ward  the  door. 

Mr.  Spragg  mumbled  his  invisible  toothpick.  "Oh, 
just  another  of  his  wild-cat  schemes — some  real-estate 
deal  he's  in." 

"Why  did  he  come  to  you  about  it?" 

He  looked  away  from  her,  fumbling  among  the  let 
ters  on  the  desk.  "  Guess  he'd  tried  everybody  else  first. 
He'd  go  and  ring  the  devil's  front-door  bell  if  he  thought 
he  could  get  anything  out  of  him." 

"I  suppose  he  did  himself  a  lot  of  harm  by  testifying 
in  the  Ararat  investigation?" 

"Yes,  sir — he's  down  and  out  this  time." 

He  uttered  the  words  with  a  certain  satisfaction.  His 
daughter  did  not  answer,  and  they  sat  silent,  facing 
each  other  across  the  littered  desk.  Under  their  brief 
[246] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

talk  about  Elmer  Moff att  currents  of  rapid  intelligence 
seemed  to  be  flowing  between  them.  Suddenly  Undine 
leaned  over  the  desk,  her  eyes  widening  trustfully,  and 
the  limpid  smile  flowing  up  to  them. 

"Father,  I  did  what  you  wanted  that  one  time,  any 
how — won't  you  listen  to  me  and  help  me  out  now?" 

XVIII 

UNDINE  stood  alone  on  the  landing  outside  her 
father's  office. 

Only  once  before  had  she  failed  to  gain  her  end  with 
him — and  there  was  a  peculiar  irony  in  the  fact  that 
Moffatt's  intrusion  should  have  brought  before  her  the 
providential  result  of  her  previous  failure.  Not  that 
she  confessed  to  any  real  resemblance  between  the  two 
situations.  In  the  present  case  she  knew  well  enough 
what  she  wanted,  and  how  to  get  it.  But  the  analogy 
had  served  her  father's  purpose,  and  Moffatt's  un 
lucky  entrance  had  visibly  strengthened  his  resistance. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that  the  obstacles  in  the  way  were 
real  enough.  Mr.  Spragg  had  not  put  her  off  with  vague 
asseverations — somewhat  against  her  will  he  had 
forced  his  proofs  on  her,  showing  her  how  much  above 
his  promised  allowance  he  had  contributed  in  the  last 
three  years  to  the  support  of  her  household.  Since  she 
could  not  accuse  herself  of  extravagance — having  still 
full  faith  in  her  gift  of  "managing" — she  could  only  con 
clude  that  it  was  impossible  to  live  on  what  her  father 
[2471 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  Ralph  could  provide;  and  this  seemed  a  practical 
reason  for  desiring  her  freedom.  If  she  and  Ralph  parted 
he  would  of  course  return  to  his  family,  and  Mr.  Spragg 
would  no  longer  be  burdened  with  a  helpless  son-in-law. 
But  even  this  argument  did  not  move  him.  Undine,  as 
soon  as  she  had  risked  Van  Degen's  name,  found  herself 
face  to  face  with  a  code  of  domestic  conduct  as  rigid  as 
its  exponent's  business  principles  were  elastic.  Mr. 
Spragg  did  not  regard  divorce  as  intrinsically  wrong  or 
even  inexpedient;  and  of  its  social  disadvantages  he  had 
never  even  heard.  Lots  of  women  did  it,  as  Undine  said ; 
and  if  their  reasons  were  adequate  they  were  justified. 
If  Ralph  Mar  veil  had  been  a  drunkard  or  "unfaithful" 
Mr.  Spragg  would  have  approved  Undine's  desire  to 
divorce  him;  but  that  it  should  be  prompted  by  her  in 
clination  for  another  man — and  a  man  with  a  wife  of 
his  own — was  as  shocking  to  him  as  it  would  have  been 
to  the  most  uncompromising  of  the  Dagonets  and  Mar- 
veils.  Such  things  happened,  as  Mr.  Spragg  knew,  but 
they  should  not  happen  to  any  woman  of  his  name  while 
he  had  the  power  to  prevent  it;  and  Undine  recognized 
that  for  the  moment  he  had  that  power. 

As  she  emerged  from  the  elevator  she  was  surprised 
to  see  Moffatt  in  the  vestibule.  His  presence  was  an 
irritating  reminder  of  her  failure,  and  she  walked  past 
him  with  a  rapid  bow;  but  he  overtook  her. 

"Mrs.  Marvell — I've  been  waiting  to  say  a  word 
to  you." 

If  it  had  been  any  one  else  she  would  have  passed  on; 
[  248  ] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

but  Moffatt's  voice  had  always  a  detaining  power. 
Even  now  that  she  knew  him  to  be  defeated  and  neg 
ligible  the  power  asserted  itself,  and  she  paused  to  say : 
"I'm  afraid  I  can't  stop — I'm  late  for  an  engagement." 

"I  shan't  make  you  much  later;  but  if  you'd  rather 
have  me  call  round  at  your  house 

"Oh,  I'm  so  seldom  in."  She  turned  a  wondering 
look  on  him.  "What  is  it  you  wanted  to  say?" 

"Just  two  words.  I've  got  an  office  in  this  building 
and  the  shortest  way  would  be  to  come  up  there  for  a 
minute."  As  her  look  grew  distant  he  added:  "I  think 
what  I've  got  to  say  is  worth  the  trip." 

His  face  was  serious,  without  underlying  irony:  the 
face  he  wore  when  he  wanted  to  be  trusted. 

"Very  well,"  she  said,  turning  back. 

Undine,  glancing  at  her  watch  as  she  came  out  of  Mof 
fatt's  office,  saw  that  he  had  been  true  to  his  promise 
of  not  keeping  her  more  than  ten  minutes.  The  fact 
was  characteristic.  Under  all  his  incalculableness  there 
had  always  been  a  hard  foundation  of  reliability:  it 
seemed  to  be  a  matter  of  choice  with  him  whether  he 
let  one  feel  that  solid  bottom  or  not.  And  in  specific 
matters  the  same  quality  showed  itself  in  an  accuracy 
of  statement,  a  precision  of  conduct,  that  contrasted 
curiously  with  his  usual  hyperbolic  banter  and  his 
loose  lounging  manner.  No  one  could  be  more  elusive 
yet  no  one  could  be  firmer  to  the  touch. 
[249] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Her  face  had  cleared  and  she  moved  more  lightly  as 
she  left  the  building.  Moffatt's  communication  had 
not  been  completely  clear  to  her,  but  she  understood 
the  outline  of  the  plan  he  had  laid  before  her,  and 
was  satisfied  with  the  bargain  they  had  struck.  He 
had  begun  by  reminding  her  of  her  promise  to  intro 
duce  him  to  any  friend  of  hers  who  might  be  useful 
in  the  way  of  business.  Over  three  years  had  passed 
since  they  had  made  the  pact,  and  Moffatt  had  kept 
loyally  to  his  side  of  it.  With  the  lapse  of  time  the  whole 
matter  had  become  less  important  to  her,  but  she 
wanted  to  prove  her  good  faith,  and  when  he  reminded 
her  of  her  promise  she  at  once  admitted  it. 

"Well,  then — I  want  you  to  introduce  me  to  your 
husband." 

Undine  was  surprised;  but  beneath  her  surprise  she 
felt  a  quick  sense  of  relief.  Ralph  was  easier  to  man 
age  than  so  many  of  her  friends — and  it  was  a  mark  of 
his  present  indifference  to  acquiesce  in  anything  she 
suggested. 

"My  husband?  Why,  what  can  he  do  for  you?" 

Moffatt  explained  at  once,  in  the  fewest  words,  as 
his  way  was  when  it  came  to  business.  He  was  inter 
ested  in  a  big  "deal"  which  involved  the  purchase  of 
a  piece  of  real  estate  held  by  a  number  of  wrangling 
heirs.  The  real-estate  broker  with  whom  Ralph  Mar- 
veil  was  associated  represented  these  heirs,  but  Mof 
fatt  had  his  reasons  for  not  approaching  him  directly. 
[250] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

And  he  didn't  want  to  go  to  Marvell  with  a  "business 
proposition  " — it  would  be  better  to  be  thrown  with  him 
socially,  as  if  by  accident.  It  was  with  that  object  that 
Moffatt  had  just  appealed  to  Mr.  Spragg,  but  Mr. 
Spragg,  as  usual,  had  "turned  him  down,"  without  even 
consenting  to  look  into  the  case. 

"He'd  rather  have  you  miss  a  good  thing  than  have 
it  come  to  you  through  me.  I  don't  know  what  on 
earth  he  thinks  it's  in  my  power  to  do  to  you — or 
ever  was,  for  that  matter,"  he  added.  "Anyhow,"  he 
went  on  to  explain,  "the  power's  all  on  your  side  now; 
and  I'll  show  you  how  little  the  doing  will  hurt  you 
as  soon  as  I  can  have  a  quiet  chat  with  your  husband." 
He  branched  off  again  into  technicalities,  nebulous  pro 
jections  of  capital  and  interest,  taxes  and  rents,  from 
which  she  finally  extracted,  and  clung  to,  the  central 
fact  that  if  the  "deal  went  through"  it  would  mean  a 
commission  of  forty  thousand  dollars  to  Marvell's  firm, 
of  which  something  over  a  fourth  would  come  to  Ralph. 

"By  Jove,  that's  an  amazing  fellow!"  Ralph  Marvell 
exclaimed,  turning  back  into  the  drawing-room,  a  few 
evenings  later,  at  the  conclusion  of  one  of  their  little 
dinners. 

Undine  looked  up  from  her  seat  by  the  fire.  She  had 

had  the  inspired  thought  of  inviting  Moffatt  to  meet 

Clare  Van  Degen,  Mrs.  Fairford  and  Charles  Bowen. 

It  had  occurred  to  her  that  the  simplest  way  of  ex- 

[251] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

plaining  Moffatt  was  to  tell  Ralph  that  she  had  unex 
pectedly  discovered  an  old  Apex  acquaintance  in  the 
protagonist  of  the  great  Ararat  Trust  fight.  Moffatt 's 
defeat  had  not  wholly  divested  him  of  interest.  As  a 
factor  in  affairs  he  no  longer  inspired  apprehension,  but 
as  the  man  who  had  dared  to  defy  Harmon  B.  Driscoll 
he  was  a  conspicuous  and,  to  some  minds,  almost  an 
heroic  figure. 

Undine  remembered  that  Clare  and  Mrs.  Fairford 
had  once  expressed  a  wish  to  see  this  braver  of  the  Olym 
pians,  and  her  suggestion  that  he  should  be  asked  to 
meet  them  gave  Ralph  evident  pleasure.  It  was  long 
since  she  had  made  any  conciliatory  sign  to  his  family. 

Moffatt 's  social  gifts  were  hardly  of  a  kind  to  please 
the  two  ladies:  he  would  have  shone  more  brightly  in 
Peter  Van  Degen's  set  than  in  his  wife's.  But  neither 
Clare  nor  Mrs.  Fairford  had  expected  a  man  of  conven 
tional  cut,  and  Moffatt's  loud  easiness  was  obviously 
less  disturbing  to  them  than  to  their  hostess.  Undine 
felt  only  his  crudeness,  and  the  tacit  criticism  passed  on 
it  by  the  mere  presence  of  such  men  as  her  husband  and 
Bowen;  but  Mrs.  Fairford  seemed  to  enjoy  provoking 
him  to  fresh  excesses  of  slang  and  hyperbole.  Gradually 
she  drew  him  into  talking  of  the  Driscoll  campaign,  and 
he  became  recklessly  explicit.  He  seemed  to  have  noth 
ing  to  hold  back :  all  the  details  of  the  prodigious  exploit 
poured  from  him  with  Homeric  volume.  Then  he  broke 
off  abruptly,  thrusting  his  hands  into  his  trouser-pockets 
[252] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  shaping  his  red  lips  to  a  whistle  which  he  checked  as 
his  glance  met  Undine's.  To  conceal  his  embarrassment 
he  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  looked  about  the  table  with 
complacency,  and  said  "I  don't  mind  if  I  do"  to  the 
servant  who  approached  to  re-fill  his  champagne  glass. 

The  men  sat  long  over  their  cigars;  but  after  an  in 
terval  Undine  called  Charles  Bowen  into  the  drawing- 
room  to  settle  some  question  in  dispute  between  Clare 
and  Mrs.  Fairford,  and  thus  gave  Moffatt  a  chance  to 
be  alone  with  her  husband.  Now  that  their  guests  had 
gone  she  was  throbbing  with  anxiety  to  know  what  had 
passed  between  the  two;  but  when  Ralph  rejoined  her 
in  the  drawing-room  she  continued  to  keep  her  eyes  on 
the  fire  and  twirl  her  fan  listlessly. 

"That's  an  amazing  chap,"  Ralph  repeated,  looking 
down  at  her.  "Where  was  it  you  ran  across  him — out 
at  Apex?" 

As  he  leaned  against  the  chimney-piece,  lighting  his 
cigarette,  it  struck  Undine  that  he  looked  less  fagged 
and  lifeless  than  usual,  and  she  felt  more  and  more  sure 
that  something  important  had  happened  during  the 
moment  of  isolation  she  had  contrived. 

She  opened  and  shut  her  fan  reflectively.  "Yes — 
years  ago;  father  had  some  business  with  him  and 
brought  him  home  to  dinner  one  day." 

"And  you've  never  seen  him  since?" 

She  waited,  as  if  trying  to  piece  her  recollections  to 
gether.  "I  suppose  I  must  have;  but  all  that  seems  so 
[253] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

long  ago,"  she  said  sighing.  She  had  been  given,  of  late, 
to  such  plaintive  glances  toward  her  happy  girlhood; 
but  Ralph  seemed  not  to  notice  the  allusion. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  exclaimed  after  a  moment,  "I 
don't  believe  the  fellow's  beaten  yet." 

She  looked  up  quickly.  "Don't  you?" 

"No;  and  I  could  see  that  Bowen  didn't  either.  He 
strikes  me  as  the  kind  of  man  who  develops  slowly, 
needs  a  big  field,  and  perhaps  makes  some  big  mistakes, 
but  gets  where  he  wants  to  in  the  end.  Jove,  I  wish  I 
could  put  him  in  a  book !  There's  something  epic  about 
>  him — a  kind  of  epic  effrontery." 

Undine's  pulses  beat  faster  as  she  listened.  Was  it 
not  what  Moffatt  had  always  said  of  himself — that  all 
he  needed  was  time  and  elbow-room?  How  odd  that 
Ralph,  who  seemed  so  dreamy  and  unobservant,  should 
instantly  have  reached  the  same  conclusion!  But  what 
she  wanted  to  know  was  the  practical  result  of  their 
meeting. 

"What  did  you  and  he  talk  about  when  you  were 
smoking?" 

"Oh,  he  got  on  the  Driscoll  fight  again — gave  us 
some  extraordinary  details.  The  man's  a  thundering 
brute,  but  he's  full  of  observation  and  humour.  Then, 
after  Bowen  joined  you,  he  told  me  about  a  new  deal 
he's  gone  into — rather  a  promising  scheme,  but  on  the 
same  Titanic  scale.  It's  just  possible,  by  the  way,  that 
we  may  be  able  to  do  something  for  him:  part  of  the 
[254] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

property  he's  after  is  held  in  our  office."  He  paused, 
knowing  Undine's  indifference  to  business  matters;  but 
the  face  she  turned  to  him  was  alive  with  interest. 

"You  mean  you  might  sell  the  property  to  him?" 

"Well,  if  the  thing  comes  off.  There  would  be  a  big 
commission  if  we  did."  He  glanced  down  on  her  half 
ironically.  "  You'd  like  that,  wouldn't  you  ? " 

She  answered  with  a  shade  of  reproach:  "Why  do 
you  say  that?  I  haven't  complained." 

"Oh,  no;  but  I  know  I've  been  a  disappointment  as 
a  money-maker." 

She  leaned  back  in  her  chair,  closing  her  eyes  as  if 
in  utter  weariness  and  indifference,  and  in  a  moment 
she  felt  him  bending  over  her.  "What's  the  matter? 
Don't  you  feel  well?" 

"I'm  a  little  tired.  It's  nothing."  She  pulled  her  hand 
away  and  burst  into  tears. 

Ralph  knelt  down  by  her  chair  and  put  his  arm  about 
her.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  touched  her  since  the 
night  of  the  boy's  birthday,  and  the  sense  of  her  soft 
ness  woke  a  momentary  warmth  in  his  veins. 

"What  is  it,  dear?  What  is  it?" 

Without  turning  her  head  she  sobbed  out:  "You  seem 
to  think  I'm  too  selfish  and  odious — that  I'm  just  pre 
tending  to  be  ill." 

"No,  no,"  he  assured  her,  smoothing  back  her  hair. 
But  she  continued  to  sob  on  in  a  gradual  crescendo  of 
despair,  till  the  vehemence  of  her  weeping  began  to 
[255] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

frighten  him,  and  he  drew  her  to  her  feet  and  tried  to 
persuade  her  to  let  herself  be  led  upstairs.  She  yielded 
to  his  arm,  sobbing  in  short  exhausted  gasps,  and  lean 
ing  her  whole  weight  on  him  as  he  guided  her  along  the 
passage  to  her  bedroom.  On  the  lounge  to  which  he 
lowered  her  she  lay  white  and  still,  tears  trickling 
through  her  lashes  and  her  handkerchief  pressed  against 
her  lips.  He  recognized  the  symptoms  with  a  sinking 
heart :  she  was  on  the  verge  of  a  nervous  attack  such  as 
she  had  had  in  the  winter,  and  he  foresaw  with  dismay 
the  disastrous  train  of  consequences,  the  doctors'  and 
nurses'  bills,  and  all  the  attendant  confusion  and  ex 
pense.  If  only  Moffatt's  project  might  be  realized — if 
for  once  he  could  feel  a  round  sum  in  his  pocket,  and  be 
freed  from  the  perpetual  daily  strain ! 

The  next  morning  Undine,  though  calmer,  was  too 
weak  to  leave  her  bed,  and  her  doctor  prescribed  rest 
and  absence  of  worry — later,  perhaps,  a  change  of  scene. 
He  explained  to  Ralph  that  nothing  was  so  wearing  to 
a  high-strung  nature  as  monotony,  and  that  if  Mrs. 
Marvell  were  contemplating  a  Newport  season  it  was 
necessary  that  she  should  be  fortified  to  meet  it.  In 
such  cases  he  often  recommended  a  dash  to  Paris  or 
London,  just  to  tone  up  the  nervous  system. 

Undine  regained  her  strength  slowly,  and  as  the  days 
dragged  on  the  suggestion  of  the  European  trip  re 
curred  with  increasing  frequency.  But  it  came  always 
from  her  medical  adviser:  she  herself  had  grown 
[2561 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

strangely  passive  and  indifferent.  She  continued  to  re 
main  upstairs  on  her  lounge,  seeing  no  one  but  Mrs. 
Heeny,  whose  daily  ministrations  had  once  more  been 
prescribed,  and  asking  only  that  the  noise  of  Paul's 
play  should  be  kept  from  her.  His  scamperings  over 
head  disturbed  her  sleep,  and  his  bed  was  moved  into 
the  day  nursery,  above  his  father's  room.  The  child's 
early  romping  did  not  trouble  Ralph,  since  he  himself 
was  always  awake  before  daylight.  The  days  were  not 
long  enough  to  hold  his  cares,  and  they  came  and  stood 
by  him  through  the  silent  hours,  when  there  was  no 
other  sound  to  drown  their  voices. 

Ralph  had  not  made  a  success  of  his  business.  The 
real-estate  brokers  who  had  taken  him  into  partnership 
had  done  so  only  with  the  hope  of  profiting  by  his  social 
connections;  and  in  this  respect  the  alliance  had  been  a 
failure.  It  was  in  such  directions  that  he  most  lacked 
facility,  and  so  far  he  had  been  of  use  to  his  partners 
only  as  an  office-drudge.  He  was  resigned  to  the  con 
tinuance  of  such  drudgery,  though  all  his  powers  cried 
out  against  it;  but  even  for  the  routine  of  business  his 
aptitude  was  small,  and  he  began  to  feel  that  he  was 
not  considered  an  addition  to  the  firm.  The  difficulty  of 
finding  another  opening  made  him  fear  a  break;  and  his 
thoughts  turned  hopefully  to  Elmer  Moffatt's  hint  of  a 
"deal."  The  success  of  the  negotiation  might  bring 
advantages  beyond  the  immediate  pecuniary  profit;  and 
that,  at  the  present  juncture,  was  important  enough  in 
itself. 

[257] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Moffatt  reappeared  two  days  after  the  dinner,  pre 
senting  himself  in  West  End  Avenue  in  the  late  after 
noon  with  the  explanation  that  the  business  in  hand 
necessitated  discretion,  and  that  he  preferred  not  to  be 
seen  in  Ralph's  office.  It  was  a  question  of  negotiating 
with  the  utmost  privacy  for  the  purchase  of  a  small 
strip  of  land  between  two  large  plots  already  acquired 
by  purchasers  cautiously  designated  by  Moffatt  as  his 
"parties."  How  far  he  "stood  in"  with  the  parties  he 
left  it  to  Ralph  to  conjecture;  but  it  was  plain  that  he 
had  a  large  stake  in  the  transaction,  and  that  it  offered 
him  his  first  chance  of  recovering  himself  since  Driscoll 
had  "thrown"  him.  The  owners  of  the  coveted  plot  did 
not  seem  anxious  to  sell,  and  there  were  personal  reasons 
for  Moffatt's  not  approaching  them  through  Ralph's 
partners,  who  were  the  regular  agents  of  the  estate:  so 
that  Ralph's  acquaintance  with  the  conditions,  com 
bined  with  his  detachments  from  the  case,  marked  him 
out  as  a  useful  intermediary. 

Their  first  talk  left  Ralph  with  a  dazzled  sense  of 
Moffatt's  strength  and  keenness,  but  with  a  vague 
doubt  as  to  the  "  straightness "  of  the  proposed  trans 
action.  Ralph  had  never  seen  his  way  clearly  in  that 
dim  underworld  of  affairs  where  men  of  the  Moffatt 
and  Driscoll  type  moved  like  shadowy  destructive 
monsters  beneath  the  darting  small  fry  of  the  surface. 
He  knew  that  "business"  has  created  its  own  special 
morality;  and  his  musings  on  man's  relation  to  his  self- 
[258] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

imposed  laws  had  shown  him  how  little  human  conduct 
is  generally  troubled  about  its  own  sanctions.  He  had  a 
vivid  sense  of  the  things  a  man  of  his  kind  didn't  do; 
but  his  inability  to  get  a  mental  grasp  on  large  financial 
problems  made  it  hard  to  apply  to  them  so  simple  a 
measure  as  this  inherited  standard.  He  only  knew,  as 
Moffatt's  plan  developed,  that  it  seemed  all  right  while 
he  talked  of  it  with  its  originator,  but  vaguely  wrong 
when  he  thought  it  over  afterward.  It  occurred  to  him 
to  consult  his  grandfather;  and  if  he  renounced  the  idea 
for  the  obvious  reason  that  Mr.  Dagonet's  ignorance  of 
business  was  as  fathomless  as  his  own,  this  was  not  his 
sole  motive.  Finally  it  occurred  to  him  to  put  the  case 
hypothetically  to  Mr.  Spragg.  As  far  as  Ralph  knew, 
his  father-in-law's  business  record  was  unblemished; 
yet  one  felt  in  him  an  elasticity  of  adjustment  not  al 
lowed  for  in  the  Dagonet  code. 

Mr.  Spragg  listened  thoughtfully  to  Ralph's  state 
ment  of  the  case,  growling  out  here  and  there  a  ten 
tative  correction,  and  turning  his  cigar  between  his 
lips  as  he  seemed  to  turn  the  problem  over  in  the  loose 
grasp  of  his  mind. 

"Well,  what's  the  trouble  with  it?"  he  asked  at 
length,  stretching  his  big  square-toed  shoes  against  the 
grate  of  his  son-in-law's  dining-room,  where,  in  the 
after-dinner  privacy  of  a  family  evening,  Ralph  had 
seized  the  occasion  to  consult  him. 

"The  trouble?"  Ralph  considered.  "Why,  that's  just 
what  I  should  like  you  to  explain  to  me." 
[259] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Mr.  Spragg  threw  back  his  head  and  stared  at  the 
garlanded  French  clock  on  the  chimney-piece.  Mrs. 
Spragg  was  sitting  upstairs  in  her  daughter's  bedroom, 
and  the  silence  of  the  house  seemed  to  hang  about  the 
two  men  like  a  listening  presence. 

"Well,  I  dunno  but  what  I  agree  with  the  doctor 
who  said  there  warn't  any  diseases,  but  only  sick  people. 
Every  case  is  different,  I  guess."  Mr.  Spragg,  munch 
ing  his  cigar,  turned  a  ruminating  glance  on  Ralph. 
"Seems  to  me  it  all  boils  down  to  one  thing.  Was  this 
fellow  we're  supposing  about  under  any  obligation  to 
the  other  party — the  one  he  was  trying  to  buy  the 
property  from?" 

Ralph  hesitated.  "  Only  the  obligation  recognized  be 
tween  decent  men  to  deal  with  each  other  decently." 

Mr.  Spragg  listened  to  this  with  the  suffering  air  of 
a  teacher  compelled  to  simplify  upon  his  simplest 
questions. 

"Any  personal  obligation,  I  meant.  Had  the  other 
fellow  done  him  a  good  turn  any  time?" 

"No — I  don't  imagine  them  to  have  had  any  pre 
vious  relations  at  all." 

His  father-in-law  stared.  "Where's  your  trouble, 
then?"  He  sat  for  a  moment  frowning  at  the  embers. 
"  Even  when  it's  the  other  way  round  it  ain't  always  so 
easy  to  decide  how  far  that  kind  of  thing's  binding  .  .  . 
and  they  say  shipwTecked  fellows'll  make  a  meal  of  a 
friend  as  quick  as  they  would  of  a  total  stranger."  He 
[260] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

drew  himself  together  with  a  shake  of  his  shoulders  and 
pulled  back  his  feet  from  the  grate.  "But  I  don't  see  the 
conundrum  in  your  case,  I  guess  it's  up  to  both  parties 
to  take  care  of  their  own  skins." 

He  rose  from  his  chair  and  wandered  upstairs  to 
Undine. 

That  was  the  Wall  Street  code:  it  all  "boiled  down" 
to  the  personal  obligation,  to  the  salt  eaten  in  the  ene 
my's  tent.  Ralph's  fancy  wandered  off  on  a  long  trail 
of  speculation  from  which  he  was  pulled  back  with  a 
jerk  by  the  need  of  immediate  action.  Moffatt's  "deal" 
could  not  wait:  quick  decisions  were  essential  to  ef 
fective  action,  and  brooding  over  ethical  shades  of  dif 
ference  might  work  more  ill  than  good  in  a  world  com 
mitted  to  swift  adjustments.  The  arrival  of  several 
unforeseen  bills  confirmed  this  view,  and  once  Ralph 
had  adopted  it  he  began  to  take  a  detached  interest  in 
the  affair. 

In  Paris,  in  his  younger  days,  he  had  once  attended 
a  lesson  in  acting  given  at  the  Conservatoire  by  one 
of  the  great  lights  of  the  theatre,  and  had  seen  an  ap 
parently  uncomplicated  role  of  the  classic  repertory, 
familiar  to  him  through  repeated  performances,  taken 
to  pieces  before  his  eyes,  dissolved  into  its  component 
elements,  and  built  up  again  with  a  minuteness  of  eluci 
dation  and  a  range  of  reference  that  made  him  feel  as 
though  he  had  been  let  into  the  secret  of  some  age-long 
natural  process.  As  he  listened  to  Moffatt  the  remem- 
[261] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

brance  of  that  lesson  came  back  to  him.  At  the  outset 
the  "deal,"  and  his  own  share  in  it,  had  seemed  simple 
enough:  he  would  have  put  on  his  hat  and  gone  out  on 
the  spot  in  the  full  assurance  of  being  able  to  transact 
the  affair.  But  as  Moffatt  talked  he  began  to  feel  as 
blank  and  blundering  as  the  class  of  dramatic  students 
before  whom  the  great  actor  had  analyzed  his  part. 
The  affair  was  in  fact  difficult  and  complex,  and  Moffatt 
saw  at  once  just  where  the  difficulties  lay  and  how  the 
personal  idiosyncrasies  of  "the  parties"  affected  them. 
Such  insight  fascinated  Ralph,  and  he  strayed  off  into 
wondering  why  it  did  not  qualify  every  financier  to  be 
a  novelist,  and  what  intrinsic  barrier  divided  the  two 
arts. 

Both  men  had  strong  incentives  for  hastening  the 
affair;  and  within  a  fortnight  after  Moffatt's  first  ad 
vance  Ralph  was  able  to  tell  him  that  his  offer  was 
accepted.  Over  and  above  his  personal  satisfaction  he 
felt  the  thrill  of  the  agent  whom  some  powerful  nego 
tiator  has  charged  with  a  delicate  mission:  he  might 
have  been  an  eager  young  Jesuit  carrying  compromi 
sing  papers  to  his  superior.  It  had  been  stimulating  to 
work  with  Moffatt,  and  to  study  at  close  range  the 
large  powerful  instrument  of  his  intelligence. 

As  he  came  out  of  Moffatt's  office  at  the  conclusion 
of  this  visit  Ralph  met  Mr.  Spragg  descending  from  his 
eyrie.  He  stopped  short  with  a  backward  glance  at 
Moffatt's  door. 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Hallo — what  were  you  doing  in  there  with  those 
cut-throats?" 

Ralph  judged  discretion  to  be  essential.  "Oh,  just  a 
little  business  for  the  firm." 

Mr.  Spragg  said  no  more,  but  resorted  to  the  soothing 
labial  motion  of  revolving  his  phantom  toothpick. 

"How's  Undie  getting  along?"  he  merely  asked,  as 
he  and  his  son-in-law  descended  together  in  the  ele 
vator. 

"She  doesn't  seem  to  feel  much  stronger.  The  doctor 
wants  her  to  run  over  to  Europe  for  a  few  weeks.  She 
thinks  of  joining  her  friends  the  Shallums  in  Paris." 

Mr.  Spragg  was  again  silent,  but  he  left  the  building 
at  Ralph's  side,  and  the  two  walked  along  together 
toward  Wall  Street. 

Presently  the  older  man  asked:  "How  did  you  get 
acquainted  with  Moffatt?" 

"Why,  by  chance — Undine  ran  across  him  some 
where  and  asked  him  to  dine  the  other  night." 

"Undine  asked  him  to  dine?" 

"Yes:  she  told  me  you  used  to  know  him  out  at 
Apex." 

Mr.  Spragg  appeared  to  search  his  memory  for  con 
firmation  of  the  fact.  "I  believe  he  used  to  be  round 
there  at  one  time.  I've  never  heard  any  good  of  him 
yet."  He  paused  at  a  crossing  and  looked  probingly 
at  his  son-in-law.  "Is  she  terribly  set  on  this  trip  to 
Europe?" 

[263] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Ralph  smiled.  "You  know  how  it  is  when  she  takes 
a  fancy  to  do  anything — 

Mr.  Spragg,  by  a  slight  lift  of  his  brooding  brows, 
seemed  to  convey  a  deep  if  unspoken  response. 

"Well,  I'd  let  her  do  it  this  time— I'd  let  her  do 
it,"  he  said  as  he  turned  down  the  steps  of  the  Sub 
way. 

Ralph  was  surprised,  for  he  had  gathered  from  some 
frightened  references  of  Mrs.  Spragg's  that  Undine's 
parents  had  wind  of  her  European  plan  and  were 
strongly  opposed  to  it.  He  concluded  that  Mr.  Spragg 
had  long  since  measured  the  extent  of  profitable  resist 
ance,  and  knew  just  when  it  became  vain  to  hold  out 
against  his  daughter  or  advise  others  to  do  so. 

Ralph,  for  his  own  part,  had  no  inclination  to  resist. 
As  he  left  Moffatt's  office  his  inmost  feeling  was  one 
of  relief.  He  had  reached  the  point  of  recognizing  that 
it  was  best  for  both  that  his  wife  should  go.  When  she 
returned  perhaps  their  lives  would  readjust  themselves 
— but  for  the  moment  he  longed  for  some  kind  of  be 
numbing  influence,  something  that  should  give  relief  to 
the  dull  daily  ache  of  feeling  her  so  near  and  yet  so 
inaccessible.  Certainly  there  were  more  urgent  uses  for 
their  brilliant  wind-fall:  heavy  arrears  of  household 
debts  had  to  be  met,  and  the  summer  would  bring  its 
own  burden.  But  perhaps  another  stroke  of  luck  might 
befall  him:  he  was  getting  to  have  the  drifting  depend 
ence  on  "luck"  of  the  man  conscious  of  his  inability  to 
[264] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

direct  his  life.  And  meanwhile  it  seemed  easier  to  let 
Undine  have  what  she  wanted. 

Undine,  on  the  whole,  behaved  with  discretion.  She 
received  the  good  news  languidly  and  showed  no  un 
seemly  haste  to  profit  by  it.  But  it  was  as  hard  to  hide 
the  light  in  her  eyes  as  to  dissemble  the  fact  that  she 
had  not  only  thought  out  every  detail  of  the  trip  in 
advance,  but  had  decided  exactly  how  her  husband 
and  son  were  to  be  disposed  of  in  her  absence.  Her  sug 
gestion  that  Ralph  should  take  Paul  to  his  grandpar 
ents,  and  that  the  West  End  Avenue  house  should  be 
let  for  the  summer,  was  too  practical  not  to  be  acted 
on;  and  Ralph  found  she  had  already  put  her  hand  on 
the  Harry  Lipscombs,  who,  after  three  years  of  neglect, 
were  to  be  dragged  back  to  favour  and  made  to  feel, 
as  the  first  step  in  their  reinstatement,  the  necessity  of 
hiring  for  the  summer  months  a  cool  airy  house  on  the 
West  Side.  On  her  return  from  Europe,  Undine  ex 
plained,  she  would  of  course  go  straight  to  Ralph  and 
the  boy  in  the  Adirondacks;  and  it  seemed  a  foolish 
extravagance  to  let  the  house  stand  empty  when  the 
Lipscombs  were  so  eager  to  take  it. 

As  the  day  of  departure  approached  it  became  harder 
for  her  to  temper  her  beams;  but  her  pleasure  showed 
itself  so  amiably  that  Ralph  began  to  think  she  might, 
after  all,  miss  the  boy  and  himself  more  than  she  im 
agined.  She  was  tenderly  preoccupied  with  Paul's  wel 
fare,  and,  to  prepare  for  his  translation  to  his  grand- 
[2651 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

parents*  she  gave  the  household  in  Washington  Square 
more  of  her  time  than  she  had  accorded  it  since  her  mar 
riage.  She  explained  that  she  wanted  Paul  to  grow  used 
to  his  new  surroundings;  and  with  that  object  she  took 
him  frequently  to  his  grandmother's,  and  won  her  way 
into  old  Mr.  Dagonet's  sympathies  by  her  devotion  to 
the  child  and  her  pretty  way  of  joining  in  his  games. 

Undine  was  not  consciously  acting  a  part:  this  new 
phase  was  as  natural  to  her  as  the  other.  In  the  joy  of 
her  gratified  desires  she  wanted  to  make  everybody 
about  her  happy.  If  only  everyone  would  do  as  she 
wished  she  would  never  be  unreasonable.  She  much  pre 
ferred  to  see  smiling  faces  about  her,  and  her  dread  of 
the  reproachful  and  dissatisfied  countenance  gave  the 
measure  of  what  she  would  do  to  avoid  it. 

These  thoughts  were  in  her  mind  when,  a  day  or  two 
before  sailing,  she  came  out  of  the  Washington  Square 
house  with  her  boy.  It  was  a  late  spring  afternoon,  and 
she  and  Paul  had  lingered  on  till  long  past  the  hour 
sacred  to  his  grandfather's  nap.  Now,  as  she  came  out 
into  the  square  she  saw  that,  however  well  Mr.  Dago- 
net  had  borne  their  protracted  romp,  it  had  left  his 
playmate  flushed  and  sleepy;  and  she  lifted  Paul  in  her 
arms  to  carry  him  to  the  nearest  cab-stand. 

As  she  raised  herself  she  saw  a  thick-set  figure  ap 
proaching  her  across  the  square;  and  a  moment  later 
she  was  shaking  hands  with  Elmer  Moffatt.  In  the 
bright  spring  air  he  looked  seasonably  glossy  and  pros- 
[2661 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

perous;  and  she  noticed  that  he  wore  a  bunch  of  violets 
in  his  buttonhole.  His  small  black  eyes  twinkled  with 
approval  as  they  rested  on  her,  and  Undine  reflected 
that,  with  Paul's  arms  about  her  neck,  and  his  little 
flushed  face  against  her  own,  she  must  present  a  not 
unpleasing  image  of  young  motherhood. 

"That  the  heir  apparent?"  Moffatt  asked;  adding 
"Happy  to  make  your  acquaintance,  sir,"  as  the  boy, 
at  Undine's  bidding,  held  out  a  fist  sticky  with  sugar 
plums. 

"He's  been  spending  the  afternoon  with  his  grand 
father,  and  they  played  so  hard  that  he's  sleepy,"  she 
explained.  Little  Paul,  at  that  stage  in  his  career,  had 
a  peculiar  grace  of  wide-gazing  deep-lashed  eyes  and 
arched  cherubic  lips,  and  Undine  saw  that  Moffatt  was 
not  insensible  to  the  picture  she  and  her  son  composed. 
She  did  not  dislike  his  admiration,  for  she  no  longer  felt 
any  shrinking  from  him — she  would  even  have  been 
glad  to  thank  him  for  the  service  he  had  done  her  hus 
band  if  she  had  known  how  to  allude  to  it  without  awk 
wardness.  Moffatt  seemed  equally  pleased  at  the  meet 
ing,  and  they  looked  at  each  other  almost  intimately 
over  Paul's  tumbled  curls. 

"He's  a  mighty  fine  fellow  and  no  mistake — but  isn't 
he  rather  an  armful  for  you?"  Moffatt  asked,  his  eyes 
lingering  with  real  kindliness  on  the  child's  face. 

"Oh,  we  haven't  far  to  go.  I'll  pick  up  a  cab  at  the 
corner." 

[267] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Well,  let  me  carry  him  that  far  anyhow,'*  said 
Moffatt. 

Undine  was  glad  to  be  relieved  of  her  burden,  for 
she  was  unused  to  the  child's  weight,  and  disliked  to 
feel  that  her  skirt  was  dragging  on  the  pavement.  "  Go 
to  the  gentleman,  Pauly — he'll  carry  you  better  than 
mother,"  she  said. 

The  little  boy's  first  movement  was  one  of  recoil 
from  the  ruddy  sharp-eyed  countenance  that  was  so 
unlike  his  father's  delicate  face;  but  he  was  an  obedient 
child,  and  after  a  moment's  hesitation  he  wound  his 
arms  trustfully  about  the  red  gentleman's  neck. 

"That's  a  good  fellow — sit  tight  and  I'll  give  you  a 
ride,"  Moffatt  cried,  hoisting  the  boy  to  his  shoulder. 

Paul  was  not  used  to  being  perched  at  such  a  height, 
and  his  nature  was  hospitable  to  new  impressions.  "Oh, 
I  like  it  up  here — you're  higher  than  father!"  he  ex 
claimed;  and  Moffatt  hugged  him  with  a  laugh. 

"It  must  feel  mighty  good  to  come  uptown  to  a  fel 
low  like  you  in  the  evenings,"  he  said,  addressing  the 
child  but  looking  at  Undine,  who  also  laughed  a  little. 

"Oh,  they're  a  dreadful  nuisance,  you  know;  but 
Paul's  a  very  good  boy." 

"I  wonder  if  he  knows  what  a  friend  I've  been  to 
him  lately,"  Moffatt  went  on,  as  they  turned  into 
Fifth  Avenue. 

Undine  smiled:  she  was  glad  he  should  have  given 
her  an  opening. 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"He  shall  be  told  as  soon  as  he's  old  enough  to 
thank  you.  I'm  so  glad  you  came  to  Ralph  about  that 
business." 

"Oh,  I  gave  him  a  leg  up,  and  I  guess  he's  given  me 
one  too.  Queer  the  way  things  come  round — he's  fairly 
put  me  in  the  way  of  a  fresh  start." 

Their  eyes  met  in  a  silence  which  Undine  was  the 
first  to  break.  "It's  been  awfully  nice  of  you  to  do 
what  you've  done — right  along.  And  this  last  thing 
has  made  a  lot  of  difference  to  us." 

"Well,  I'm  glad  you  feel  that  way.  I  never  wanted 
to  be  anything  but  'nice,'  as  you  call  it."  Moffatt 
paused  a  moment  and  then  added:  "If  you're  less 
scared  of  me  than  your  father  is  I'd  be  glad  to  call 
round  and  see  you  once  in  a  while." 

The  quick  blood  rushed  to  her  cheeks.  There  was 
nothing  challenging,  demanding  in  his  tone — she  guessed 
at  once  that  if  he  made  the  request  it  was  simply  for  the 
pleasure  of  being  with  her,  and  she  liked  the  magna 
nimity  implied.  Nevertheless  she  was  not  sorry  to  have 
to  answer:  "Of  course  I'll  always  be  glad  to  see  you — • 
only,  as  it  happens,  I'm  just  sailing  for  Europe." 

"For  Europe?"  The  word  brought  Moffatt  to  a  stand 
so  abruptly  that  little  Paul  lurched  on  his  shoulder. 

"For  Europe?"  he  repeated.  "Why,  I  thought  you 
said  the  other  evening  you  expected  to  stay  on  in  town 
till  July.  Didn't  you  think  of  going  to  the  Adiron- 
dacks?" 

[  269] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Flattered  by  his  evident  disappointment,  she  be 
came  high  and  careless  in  her  triumph.  "Oh,  yes, 
— but  that's  all  changed.  Ralph  and  the  boy  are  going; 
but  I  sail  on  Saturday  to  join  some  friends  in  Paris — 
and  later  I  may  do  some  motoring  in  Switzerland  and 
Italy." 

She  laughed  a  little  in  the  mere  enjoyment  of  put 
ting  her  plans  into  words  and  Moffatt  laughed  too,  but 
with  an  edge  of  sarcasm. 

"I  see — I  see:  everything's  changed,  as  you  say,  and 
your  husband  can  blow  you  off  to  the  trip.  Well,  I 
hope  you'll  have  a  first-class  time." 

Their  glances  crossed  again,  and  something  in  his 
cool  scrutiny  impelled  Undine  to  say,  with  a  burst  of 
candour:  "If  I  do,  you  know,  I  shall  owe  it  all  to 
you!" 

"Well,  I  always  told  you  I  meant  to  act  white  by 
you,"  he  answered. 

They  walked  on  in  silence,  and  presently  he  began 
again  in  his  usual  joking  strain:  "See  what  one  of  the 
Apex  girls  has  been  up  to?" 

Apex  was  too  remote  for  her  to  understand  the  refer 
ence,  and  he  went  on:  "Why,  Millard  Binch's  wife — 
Indiana  Frusk  that  was.  Didn't  you  see  in  the  papers 
that  Indiana'd  fixed  it  up  with  James  J.  Rolliver  to 
marry  her?  They  say  it  was  easy  enough  squaring  Mil 
lard  Binch — you'd  know  it  would  be — but  it  cost  Rol 
liver  near  a  million  to  mislay  Mrs.  R.  and  the  children. 
[270] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Well,  Indiana's  pulled  it  off,  anyhow;  she  always  was 
a  bright  girl.  But  she  never  came  up  to  you." 

"Oh "  she  stammered  with  a  laugh,  astonished 

and  agitated  by  his  news.  Indiana  Frusk  and  Rolliver! 
It  showed  how  easily  the  thing  could  be  done.  If  only 
her  father  had  listened  to  her!  If  a  girl  like  Indiana 
Frusk  could  gain  her  end  so  easily,  what  might  not 
Undine  have  accomplished?  She  knew  Moffatt  was 
right  in  saying  that  Indiana  had  never  come  up  to 
her.  .  .  She  wondered  how  the  marriage  would  strike 
Van  Degen.  .  . 

She  signalled  to  a  cab  and  they  walked  toward  it 
without  speaking.  Undine  was  recalling  with  intensity 
that  one  of  Indiana's  shoulders  was  higher  than  the 
other,  and  that  people  in  Apex  had  thought  her  lucky 
to  catch  Millard  Binch,  the  druggist's  clerk,  when  Un 
dine  herself  had  cast  him  off  after  a  lingering  engage 
ment.  And  now  Indiana  Frusk  was  to  be  Mrs.  James 
J.  Rolliver! 

Undine  got  into  the  cab  and  bent  forward  to  take  lit 
tle  Paul. 

Moffatt  lowered  his  charge  with  exaggerated  care, 
and  a  "Steady  there,  steady,"  that  made  the  child 
laugh;  then,  stooping  over,  he  put  a  kiss  on  Paul's  lips 
before  handing  him  over  to  his  mother. 


[271] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 


XIX 

PARISIAN  DIAMOND  COMPANY — Anglo- Amer- 
J_  lean  branch." 

Charles  Bowen,  seated,  one  rainy  evening  of  the  Paris 
season,  in  a  corner  of  the  great  Nouveau  Luxe  restau 
rant,  was  lazily  trying  to  resolve  his  impressions  of  the 
scene  into  the  phrases  of  a  letter  to  his  old  friend  Mrs. 
Henley  Fairford. 

The  long  habit  of  unwritten  communion  with  this 
lady — in  no  way  conditioned  by  the  short  rare  letters 
they  actually  exchanged — usually  caused  his  notations, 
in  absence,  to  fall  into  such  terms  when  the  subject 
was  of  a  kind  to  strike  an  answering  flash  from  her. 
And  who  but  Mrs.  Fairford  would  see,  from  his  own 
precise  angle,  the  fantastic  improbability,  the  layers 
on  layers  of  unsubstantialness,  on  which  the  seemingly 
solid  scene  before  him  rested? 

The  dining-room  of  the  Nouveau  Luxe  was  at  its 
fullest,  and,  having  contracted  on  the  garden  side 
through  stress  of  weather,  had  even  overflowed  to  the 
farther  end  of  the  long  hall  beyond;  so  that  Bowen,  from 
his  corner,  surveyed  a  seemingly  endless  perspective  of 
plumed  and  jewelled  heads,  of  shoulders  bare  or  black- 
coated,  encircling  the  close-packed  tables.  He  had  come 
half  an  hour  before  the  time  he  had  named  to  his 
expected  guest,  so  that  he  might  have  the  undisturbed 
[2721 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

amusement  of  watching  the  picture  compose  itself 
again  before  his  eyes.  During  some  forty  years'  per 
petual  exercise  of  his  perceptions  he  had  never  come 
across  anything  that  gave  them  the  special  titillation 
produced  by  the  sight  of  the  dinner-hour  at  the  Nou- 
veau  Luxe:  the  same  sense  of  putting  his  hand  on 
human  nature's  passion  for  the  factitious,  its  incorri 
gible  habit  of  imitating  the  imitation. 

As  he  sat  watching  the  familiar  faces  swept  toward 
him  on  the  rising  tide  of  arrival — for  it  was  one  of  the 
joys  of  the  scene  that  the  type  was  always  the  same 
even  when  the  individual  was  not — he  hailed  with 
renewed  appreciation  this  costly  expression  of  a  social 
ideal.  The  dining-room  at  the  Nouveau  Luxe  repre 
sented,  on  such  a  spring  evening,  what  unbounded  ma 
terial  power  had  devised  for  the  delusion  of  its  leisure: 
a  phantom  "society,"  with  all  the  rules,  smirks,  ges 
tures  of  its  model,  but  evoked  out  of  promiscuity  and 
incoherence  while  the  other  had  been  the  product  of 
continuity  and  choice.  And  the  instinct  which  had 
driven  a  new  class  of  world-compellers  to  bind  them 
selves  to  slavish  imitation  of  the  superseded,  and  their 
prompt  and  reverent  faith  in  the  reality  of  the  sham 
they  had  created,  seemed  to  Bowen  the  most  satisfy 
ing  proof  of  human  permanence. 

With  this  thought  in  his  mind  he  looked  up  to  greet 
his  guest.  The  Comte  Raymond  de  Chelles,  straight, 
slim  and  gravely  smiling,  came  toward  him  with  fre- 
[273] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

quent  pauses  of  salutation  at  the  crowded  tables;  say 
ing,  as  he  seated  himself  and  turned  his  pleasant  eyes 
on  the  scene:  "7Z  ny  a  pas  a  dire,  my  dear  Bowen,  it's 
charming  and  sympathetic  and  original — we  owe  Amer 
ica  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  inventing  it!" 

Bowen  felt  a  last  touch  of  satisfaction:  they  were  the 
very  words  to  complete  his  thought. 

"My  dear  fellow,  it's  really  you  and  your  kind  who 
are  responsible.  It's  the  direct  creation  of  feudalism, 
like  all  the  great  social  upheavals!" 

Raymond  de  Chelles  stroked  his  handsome  brown 
moustache.  "I  should  have  said,  on  the  contrary,  that 
one  enjoyed  it  for  the  contrast.  It's  such  a  refreshing 
change  from  our  institutions — which  are,  nevertheless, 
the  necessary  foundations  of  society.  But  just  as  one 
may  have  an  infinite  admiration  for  one's  wife,  and  yet 

occasionally "  he  waved  a  light  hand  toward  the 

spectacle.  "This,  in  the  social  order,  is  the  diversion, 
the  permitted  diversion,  that  your  original  race  has 
devised :  a  kind  of  superior  Bohemia,  where  one  may  be 
respectable  without  being  bored." 

Bowen  laughed.  "You've  put  it  in  a  nutshell:  the 
ideal  of  the  American  woman  is  to  be  respectable  with 
out  being  bored;  and  from  that  point  of  view  this  world 
they've  invented  has  more  originality  than  I  gave  it 
credit  for." 

Chelles  thoughtfully  unfolded  his  napkin.  "My  im 
pression's  a  superficial  one,  of  course — for  as  to  what 
[274] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

goes  on  underneath — !"  He  looked  across  the  room.  "If 
I  married  I  shouldn't  care  to  have  my  wife  come  here 
too  often." 

Bowen  laughed  again.  "She'd  be  as  safe  as  in  a  bank! 
Nothing  ever  goes  on!  Nothing  that  ever  happens  here 
is  real." 

"A h,  quant  a  cela "  the  Frenchman  murmured, 

inserting  a  fork  into  his  melon. 

Bowen  looked  at  him  with  enjoyment — he  was  such 
a  precious  foot-note  to  the  page!  The  two  men,  acci 
dentally  thrown  together  some  years  previously  during  a 
trip  up  the  Nile,  always  met  again  with  pleasure  when 
Bowen  returned  to  France.  Raymond  de  Chelles,  who 
came  of  a  family  of  moderate  fortune,  lived  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  year  on  his  father's  estates  in  Burgundy; 
but  he  came  up  every  spring  to  the  entresol  of  the  old 
Marquis's  hotel  for  a  two  months'  study  of  human  na 
ture,  applying  to  the  pursuit  the  discriminating  taste 
and  transient  ardour  that  give  the  finest  bloom  to 
pleasure.  Bowen  liked  him  as  a  companion  and  admired 
him  as  a  charming  specimen  of  the  Frenchman  of  his 
class,  embodying  in  his  lean,  fatigued  and  finished  per 
son  that  happy  mean  of  simplicity  and  intelligence  of 
which  no  other  race  has  found  the  secret.  If  Raymond 
de  Chelles  had  been  English  he  would  have  been  a  mere 
fox-hunting  animal,  with  appetites  but  without  tastes; 
but  in  his  lighter  Gallic  clay  the  wholesome  territorial 
savour,  the  inherited  passion  for  sport  and  agriculture, 
[2751 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

were  blent  with  an  openness  to  finer  sensations,  a  sense 
of  the  come-and-go  of  ideas,  under  which  one  felt  the 
tight  hold  of  two  or  three  inherited  notions,  religious, 
political,  and  domestic,  in  total  contradiction  to  his 
surface  attitude.  That  the  inherited  notions  would  in 
the  end  prevail,  everything  in  his  appearance  declared, 
from  the  distinguished  slant  of  his  nose  to  the  narrow 
forehead  under  his  thinning  hair;  he  was  the  kind  of 
man  who  would  inevitably  "  re  vert"  when  he  married. 
But  meanwhile  the  surface  he  presented  to  the  play  of 
life  was  broad  enough  to  take  in  the  fantastic  spectacle 
of  the  Nouveau  Luxe;  and  to  see  its  gestures  reflected 
in  a  Latin  consciousness  was  an  endless  entertainment 
to  Bowen. 

The  tone  of  his  guest's  last  words  made  him  take 
them  up.  "But  is  the  lady  you  allude  to  more  than  a 
hypothesis?  Surely  you're  not  thinking  of  getting 
married?" 

Chelles  raised  his  eye-brows  ironically.  "When  hasn't 
one  to  think  of  it,  in  my  situation?  One  hears  of  nothing 
else  at  home — one  knows  that,  like  death,  it  has  to 
come."  His  glance,  which  was  still  mustering  the  room, 
came  to  a  sudden  pause  and  kindled. 

"Who's  the  lady  over  there — fair-haired,  in  white — • 
the  one  who's  just  come  in  with  the  red-faced  man? 
They  seem  to  be  with  a  party  of  your  compatriots." 

Bowen  followed  his  glance  to  a  neighbouring  table, 
where,  at  the  moment,  Undine  Marvell  was  seating 
[276] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

herself  at  Peter  Van  Degen's  side,  in  the  company  of 
the  Harvey  Shallums,  the  beautiful  Mrs.  Beringer  and 
a  dozen  other  New  York  figures. 

She  was  so  placed  that  as  she  took  her  seat  she 
recognized  Bowen  and  sent  him  a  smile  across  the  tables. 
She  was  more  simply  dressed  than  usual,  and  the  pink 
lights,  warming  her  cheeks  and  striking  gleams  from 
her  hair,  gave  her  face  a  dewy  freshness  that  was  new 
to  Bowen.  He  had  always  thought  her  beauty  too 
obvious,  too  bathed  in  the  bright  publicity  of  the 
American  air;  but  to-night  she  seemed  to  have  been 
brushed  by  the  wing  of  poetry,  and  its  shadow  lingered 
in  her  eyes. 

Chelles'  gaze  made  it  evident  that  he  had  received 
the  same  impression. 

"One  is  sometimes  inclined  to  deny  your  compatriots 
actual  beauty — to  charge  them  with  producing  the  ef 
fect  without  having  the  features;  but  in  this  case — 
you  say  you  know  the  lady?" 

"Yes:  she's  the  wife  of  an  old  friend." 

"The  wife?  She's  married?  There,  again,  it's  so  puz 
zling!  Your  young  girls  look  so  experienced,  and  your 
married  women  sometimes  so — unmarried." 

"Well,  they  often  are — in  these  days  of  divorce!" 

The  other's  interest  quickened.  "Your  friend's  di 
vorced?" 

"Oh,  no;  heaven  forbid !  Mrs.  Marvell  hasn't  been  long 
married;  and  it  was  a  love-match  of  the  good  old  kind." 
[  2771 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Ah— and  the  husband?  Which  is  he?" 

"He's  not  here — he's  in  New  York." 

"Feverishly  adding  to  a  fortune  already  monstrous?  " 

"No;  not  precisely  monstrous.  The  Marvells  are  not 
well  off,"  said  Bowen,  amused  by  his  friend's  inter 
rogations. 

"And  he  allows  an  exquisite  being  like  that  to  come 
to  Paris  without  him — and  in  company  with  the  red- 
faced  gentleman  who  seems  so  alive  to  his  advan 
tages?" 

"We  don't  'allow'  our  women  this  or  that;  I  don't 
think  we  set  much  store  by  the  compulsory  virtues." 

His  companion  received  this  with  amusement.  "If 
you're  as  detached  as  that,  why  does  the  obsolete  insti 
tution  of  marriage  survive  with  you?" 

"Oh,  it  still  has  its  uses.  One  couldn't  be  divorced 
without  it." 

Chelles  laughed  again;  but  his  straying  eye  still  fol 
lowed  the  same  direction,  and  Bowen  noticed  that 
the  fact  was  not  unremarked  by  the  object  of  his 
contemplation.  Undine's  party  was  one  of  the  liveliest 
in  the  room:  the  American  laugh  rose  above  the  din  of 
the  orchestra  as  the  American  toilets  dominated  the 
less  daring  effects  at  the  other  tables.  Undine,  on  en 
tering,  had  seemed  to  be  in  the  same  mood  as  her 
companions;  but  Bowen  saw  that,  as  she  became  con 
scious  of  his  friend's  observation,  she  isolated  herself  in 
a  kind  of  soft  abstraction;  and  he  admired  the  adapta- 
[278] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

bility  which  enabled  her  to  draw  from  such  surround 
ings  the  contrasting  graces  of  reserve. 

They  had  greeted  each  other  with  all  the  outer  signs 
of  cordiality,  but  Bowen  fancied  she  would  not  care  to 
have  him  speak  to  her.  She  was  evidently  dining  with 
Van  Degen,  and  Van  Degen's  proximity  was  the  last 
fact  she  would  wish  to  have  transmitted  to  the  critics  in 
Washington  Square.  Bowen  was  therefore  surprised 
when,  as  he  rose  to  leave  the  restaurant,  he  heard  him 
self  hailed  by  Peter. 

"  Hallo — hold  on !  When  did  you  come  over?  Mrs.  Mar- 
veil's  dying  for  the  last  news  about  the  old  homestead." 

Undine's  smile  confirmed  the  appeal.  She  wanted 
to  know  how  lately  Bowen  had  left  New  York,  and 
pressed  him  to  tell  her  when  he  had  last  seen  her  boy, 
how  he  was  looking,  and  whether  Ralph  had  been  per 
suaded  to  go  down  to  Clare's  on  Saturdays  and  get  a 
little  riding  and  tennis?  And  dear  Laura — was  she  well 
too,  and  was  Paul  with  her,  or  still  with  his  grand 
mother?  They  were  all  dreadfully  bad  correspondents, 
and  so  was  she,  Undine  laughingly  admitted ;  and  when 
Ralph  had  last  written  her  these  questions  had  still  been 
undecided. 

As  she  smiled  up  at  Bowen  he  saw  her  glance  stray 
to  the  spot  where  his  companion  hovered;  and  when  the 
diners  rose  to  move  toward  the  garden  for  coffee  she 
said,  with  a  sweet  note  and  a  detaining  smile:  "Do 
come  with  us — I  haven't  half  finished." 
[279] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Van  Degen  echoed  the  request,  and  Bowen,  amused 
by  Undine's  arts,  was  presently  introducing  Chelles, 
and  joining  with  him  in  the  party's  transit  to  the  terrace. 

The  rain  had  ceased,  and  under  the  clear  evening 
sky  the  restaurant  garden  opened  green  depths  that 
skilfully  hid  its  narrow  boundaries.  Van  Degen's  com 
pany  was  large  enough  to  surround  two  of  the  tables 
on  the  terrace,  and  Bowen  noted  the  skill  with  which 
Undine,  leaving  him  to  Mrs.  Shallum's  care,  contrived 
to  draw  Raymond  de  Chelles  to  the  other  table.  Still 
more  noticeable  was  the  effect  of  this  stratagem  on  Van 
Degen,  who  also  found  himself  relegated  to  Mrs.  Shal 
lum's  group.  Poor  Peter's  state  was  betrayed  by  the 
irascibility  which  wreaked  itself  on  a  jostling  waiter, 
and  found  cause  for  loud  remonstrance  in  the  coldness 
of  the  coffee  and  the  badness  of  the  cigars ;  and  Bowen, 
with  something  more  than  the  curiosity  of  the  looker-on, 
wondered  whether  this  were  the  real  clue  to  Undine's 
conduct.  He  had  always  smiled  at  Mrs.  Fairford's  fears 
for  Ralph's  domestic  peace.  He  thought  Undine  too 
clear-headed  to  forfeit  the  advantages  of  her  marriage; 
but  it  now  struck  him  that  she  might  have  had  a  glimpse 
of  larger  opportunities.  Bowen,  at  the  thought,  felt 
the  pang  of  the  sociologist  over  the  individual  havoc 
wrought  by  every  social  readjustment:  it  had  so  long 
been  clear  to  him  that  poor  Ralph  was  a  survival,  and 
destined,  as  such,  to  go  down  in  any  conflict  with  the 
rising  forces. 

[280] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 


XX 


SOME  six  weeks  later,  Undine  Marvell  stood  at  the 
window  smiling  down  on  her  recovered  Paris. 

Her  hotel  sitting-room  had,  as  usual,  been  flowered, 
cushioned  and  lamp-shaded  into  a  delusive  semblance  of 
stability;  and  she  had  really  felt,  for  the  last  few  weeks, 
that  the  life  she  was  leading  there  must  be  going  to 
last — it  seemed  so  perfect  an  answer  to  all  her  wants ! 

As  she  looked  out  at  the  thronged  street,  on  which  the 
summer  light  lay  like  a  blush  of  pleasure,  she  felt  her 
self  naturally  akin  to  all  the  bright  and  careless  free 
dom  of  the  scene.  She  had  been  away  from  Paris  for 
two  days,  and  the  spectacle  before  her  seemed  more 
rich  and  suggestive  after  her  brief  absence  from  it. 
Her  senses  luxuriated  in  all  its  material  details:  the 
thronging  motors,  the  brilliant  shops,  the  novelty  and 
daring  of  the  women's  dresses,  the  piled-up  colours  of 
the  ambulant  flower-carts,  the  appetizing  expanse  of 
the  fruiterers'  windows,  even  the  chromatic  effects  of 
the  petits  fours  behind  the  plate-glass  of  the  pastry 
cooks:  all  the  surface-sparkle  and  variety  of  the  inex 
haustible  streets  of  Paris. 

The  scene  before  her  typified  to  Undine  her  first 

real  taste  of  life.  How  meagre  and  starved  the  past 

appeared  in  comparison  with  this  abundant  present! 

The  noise,  the  crowd,  the  promiscuity  beneath  her  eyes 

[281] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

symbolized  the  glare  and  movement  of  her  life.  Every 
moment  of  her  days  was  packed  with  excitement  and 
exhilaration.  Everything  amused  her:  the  long  hours 
of  bargaining  and  debate  with  dress-makers  and  jew 
ellers,  the  crowded  lunches  at  fashionable  restaurants, 
the  perfunctory  dash  through  a  picture-show  or  the 
lingering  visit  to  the  last  new  milliner;  the  afternoon 
motor-rush  to  some  leafy  suburb,  where  tea  and  music 
and  sunset  were  hastily  absorbed  on  a  crowded  ter 
race  above  the  Seine;  the  whirl  home  through  the  Bois 
to  dress  for  dinner  and  start  again  on  the  round  of 
evening  diversions;  the  dinner  at  the  Nouveau  Luxe  or 
the  Cafe  de  Paris,  and  the  little  play  at  the  Capucines 
or  the  Varietes,  followed,  because  the  night  was  "too 
lovely,"  and  it  was  a  shame  to  waste  it,  by  a  breath 
less  flight  back  to  the  Bois,  with  supper  in  one  of  its 
lamp-hung  restaurants,  or,  if  the  weather  forbade,  a 
tumultuous  progress  through  the  midnight  haunts 
where  "ladies"  were  not  supposed  to  show  themselves, 
and  might  consequently  taste  the  thrill  of  being  occa 
sionally  taken  for  their  opposites. 

As  the  varied  vision  unrolled  itself,  Undine  con 
trasted  it  with  the  pale  monotony  of  her  previous 
summers.  The  one  she  most  resented  was  the  first 
after  her  marriage,  the  European  summer  out  of  whose 
joys  she  had  been  cheated  by  her  own  ignorance  and 
Ralph's  perversity.  They  had  been  free  then,  there  had 
been  no  child  to  hamper  their  movements,  their  money 
[  282] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

anxieties  had  hardly  begun,  the  face  of  life  had 
been  fresh  and  radiant,  and  she  had  been  doomed  to 
waste  such  opportunities  on  a  succession  of  ill-smelling 
Italian  towns.  She  still  felt  it  to  be  her  deepest  griev 
ance  against  her  husband;  and  now  that,  after  four 
years  of  petty  household  worries,  another  chance  of 
escape  had  come,  he  already  wanted  to  drag  her  back 
to  bondage! 

This  fit  of  retrospection  had  been  provoked  by  two 
letters  which  had  come  that  morning.  One  was  from 
Ralph,  who  began  by  reminding  her  that  he  had  not 
heard  from  her  for  weeks,  and  went  on  to  point  out,  in 
his  usual  tone  of  good-humoured  remonstrance,  that 
since  her  departure  the  drain  on  her  letter  of  credit  had 
been  deep  and  constant.  "I  wanted  you,"  he  wrote,  "to 
get  all  the  fun  you  could  out  of  the  money  I  made  last 
spring;  but  I  didn't  think  you'd  get  through  it  quite  so 
fast.  Try  to  come  home  without  leaving  too  many 
bills  behind  you.  Your  illness  and  Paul's  cost  more 
than  I  expected,  and  Lipscomb  has  had  a  bad  knock 
in  Wall  Street,  and  hasn't  yet  paid  his  first  quarter.  .  ." 

Always  the  same  monotonous  refrain!  Was  it  her 
fault  that  she  and  the  boy  had  been  ill?  Or  that  Harry 
Lipscomb  had  been  "on  the  wrong  side"  of  Wall 
Street?  Ralph  seemed  to  have  money  on  the  brain: 
his  business  life  had  certainly  deteriorated  him.  And, 
since  he  hadn't  made  a  success  of  it  after  all,  why 
shouldn't  he  turn  back  to  literature  and  try  to  write  his 
[283] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

novel?  Undine,  the  previous  winter,  had  been  dazzled 
by  the  figures  which  a  well-known  magazine  editor 
wThom  she  had  met  at  dinner  had  named  as  within  reach 
of  the  successful  novelist.  She  perceived  for  the  first 
time  that  literature  was  becoming  fashionable,  and  in 
stantly  decided  that  it  would  be  amusing  and  original 
if  she  and  Ralph  should  owe  their  prosperity  to  his  tal 
ent.  She  already  saw  herself,  as  the  wife  of  a  celebrated 
author,  wearing  "artistic"  dresses  and  doing  the  draw 
ing-room  over  with  Gothic  tapestries  and  dim  lights  in 
altar  candle-sticks.  But  when  she  suggested  Ralph's 
taking  up  his  novel  he  answered  with  a  laugh  that  his 
brains  were  sold  to  the  firm — that  when  he  came  back 
at  night  the  tank  was  empty.  .  .  And  now  he  wanted  her 
to  sail  for  home  in  a  week! 

The  other  letter  excited  a  deeper  resentment.  It  was 
an  appeal  from  Laura  Fairford  to  return  and  look  after 
Ralph.  He  was  overworked  and  out  of  spirits,  she  wrote, 
and  his  mother  and  sister,  reluctant  as  they  were  to 
interfere,  felt  they  ought  to  urge  Undine  to  come  back 
to  him.  Details  followed,  unwelcome  and  officious. 
What  right  had  Laura  Fairford  to  preach  to  her  of 
wifely  obligations?  No  doubt  Charles  Bowen  had  sent 
home  a  highly-coloured  report — and  there  was  really 
a  certain  irony  in  Mrs.  Fairford's  criticizing  her  sister- 
in-law's  conduct  on  information  obtained  from  such  a 
source ! 

Undine  turned  from  the  window  and  threw  herself 
[284] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

down  on  her  deeply  cushioned  sofa.  She  was  feeling  the 
pleasant  fatigue  consequent  on  her  trip  to  the  country, 
whither  she  and  Mrs.  Shallum  had  gone  with  Raymond 
de  Chelles  to  spend  a  night  at  the  old  Marquis's  chateau. 
When  her  travelling  companions,  an  hour  earlier,  had 
left  her  at  her  door,  she  had  half -promised  to  rejoin 
them  for  a  late  dinner  in  the  Bois;  and  as  she  leaned 
back  among  the  cushions  disturbing  thoughts  were 
banished  by  the  urgent  necessity  of  deciding  what  dress 
she  should  wear. 

These  bright  weeks  of  the  Parisian  spring  had  given 
her  a  first  real  glimpse  into  the  art  of  living.  From  the 
experts  who  had  taught  her  to  subdue  the  curves  of 
her  figure  and  soften  her  bright  free  stare  with  dusky 
pencillings,  to  the  skilled  purveyors  of  countless  forms 
of  pleasure — the  theatres  and  restaurants,  the  green 
and  blossoming  suburbs,  the  whole  shining  shifting 
spectacle  of  nights  and  days — every  sight  and  sound 
and  word  had  combined  to  charm  her  perceptions 
and  refine  her  taste.  And  her  growing  friendship  with 
Raymond  de  Chelles  had  been  the  most  potent  of 
these  influences. 

Chelles,  at  once  immensely  "taken,"  had  not  only 
shown  his  eagerness  to  share  in  the  helter-skelter 
motions  of  Undine's  party,  but  had  given  her  glimpses 
of  another,  still  more  brilliant  existence,  that  life 
of  the  inaccessible  "Faubourg"  of  which  the  first  tan 
talizing  hints  had  but  lately  reached  her.  Hitherto 
[285  1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

she  had  assumed  that  Paris  existed  for  the  stranger,  that 
its  native  life  was  merely  an  obscure  foundation  for 
the  dazzling  superstructure  of  hotels  and  restaurants 
in  which  her  compatriots  disported  themselves.  But 
lately  she  had  begun  to  hear  about  other  American 
women,  the  women  who  had  married  into  the  French 
aristocracy,  and  who  led,  in  the  high-walled  houses  be 
yond  the  Seine  which  she  had  once  thought  so  dull  and 
dingy,  a  life  that  made  her  own  seem  as  undistin 
guished  as  the  social  existence  of  the  Mealey  House. 
Perhaps  what  most  exasperated  her  was  the  discovery, 
in  this  impenetrable  group,  of  the  Miss  Wincher  who 
had  poisoned  her  far-off  summer  at  Potash  Springs.  To 
recognize  her  old  enemy  in  the  Marquise  de  Trezac 
who  so  frequently  figured  in  the  Parisian  chronicle 
was  the  more  irritating  to  Undine  because  her  inter 
vening  social  experiences  had  caused  her  to  look  back 
on  Nettie  Wincher  as  a  frumpy  girl  who  wouldn't  have 
"had  a  show"  in  New  York. 

Once  more  all  the  accepted  values  were  reversed, 
and  it  turned  out  that  Miss  Wincher  had  been  in  pos 
session  of  some  key  to  success  on  which  Undine  had 
not  yet  put  her  hand.  To  know  that  others  were  in 
different  to  what  she  had  thought  important  was  to 
cheapen  all  present  pleasure  and  turn  the  whole  force 
of  her  desires  in  a  new  direction.  What  she  wanted  for 
the  moment  was  to  linger  on  in  Paris,  prolonging  her 
flirtation  with  Chelles,  and  profiting  by  it  to  detach 
[286] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

herself  from  her  compatriots  and  enter  doors  closed  to 
their  approach.  And  Chelles  himself  attracted  her:  she 
thought  him  as  "sweet"  as  she  had  once  thought  Ralph, 
whose  fastidiousness  and  refinement  were  blent  in  him 
with  a  delightful  foreign  vivacity.  His  chief  value,  how 
ever,  lay  in  his  power  of  exciting  Van  Degen's  jealousy. 
She  knew  enough  of  French  customs  to  be  aware  that 
such  devotion  as  Chelles'  was  not  likely  to  have  much 
practical  bearing  on  her  future;  but  Peter  had  an  alarm 
ing  way  of  lapsing  into  security,  and  as  a  spur  to  his  ar 
dour  she  knew  the  value  of  other  men's  attentions. 

It  had  become  Undine's  fixed  purpose  to  bring  Van 
Degen  to  a  definite  expression  of  his  intentions.  The 
case  of  Indiana  Frusk,  whose  brilliant  marriage  the 
journals  of  two  continents  had  recently  chronicled  with 
unprecedented  richness  of  detail,  had  made  less  impres 
sion  on  him  than  she  hoped.  He  treated  it  as  a  comic 
episode  without  special  bearing  on  their  case,  and  once, 
when  Undine  cited  Rolliver's  expensive  fight  for  free 
dom  as  an  instance  of  the  power  of  love  over  the  most 
invulnerable  natures,  had  answered  carelessly:  "Oh,  his 
first  wife  was  a  laundress,  I  believe." 

But  all  about  them  couples  were  unpairing  and  pair 
ing  again  with  an  ease  and  rapidity  that  encouraged 
Undine  to  bide  her  time.  It  was  simply  a  question  of 
making  Van  Degen  want  her  enough,  and  of  not  being 
obliged  to  abandon  the  game  before  he  wanted  her  as 
much  as  she  meant  he  should.  This  was  precisely  what 
[2871 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

v/ould  happen  if  she  were  compelled  to  leave  Paris  now. 
Already  the  event  had  shown  how  right  she  had  been  to 
come  abroad:  the  attention  she  attracted  in  Paris  had 
reawakened  Van  Degen's  fancy,  and  her  hold  over  him 
was  stronger  than  when  they  had  parted  in  America. 
But  the  next  step  must  be  taken  with  coolness  and  cir 
cumspection;  and  she  must  not  throw  away  what  she 
had  gained  by  going  away  at  a  stage  when  he  was  surer 
of  her  than  she  of  him. 

She  was  still  intensely  considering  these  questions 
when  the  door  behind  her  opened  and  he  came  in. 

She  looked  up  with  a  frown  and  he  gave  a  depre 
cating  laugh.  "Didn't  I  knock?  Don't  look  so  savage! 
They  told  me  downstairs  you'd  got  back,  and  I  just 
bolted  in  without  thinking." 

He  had  widened  and  purpled  since  their  first  encoun 
ter,  five  years  earlier,  but  his  features  had  not  matured. 
His  face  was  still  the  face  of  a  covetous  bullying  boy, 
with  a  large  appetite  for  primitive  satisfactions  and 
a  sturdy  belief  in  his  intrinsic  right  to  them.  It  was  all 
the  more  satisfying  to  Undine's  vanity  to  see  his  look 
change  at  her  tone  from  command  to  conciliation,  and 
from  conciliation  to  the  entreaty  of  a  capriciously- 
treated  animal. 

"  What  a  ridiculous  hour  for  a  visit!"  she  exclaimed, 
ignoring  his  excuse. 

"Well,    if    you    disappear    like    that,    without    a 

word " 

[288] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"I  told  my  maid  to  telephone  you  I  was  going  away." 

"You  couldn't  make  time  to  do  it  yourself,  I  suppose?  " 

"We  rushed  off  suddenly;  I'd  hardly  time  to  get  to 
the  station." 

"You  rushed  off  where,  may  I  ask?"  Van  Degen 
still  lowered  down  on  her. 

"Oh,  didn't  I  tell  you?  I've  been  down  staying  at 
Chelles'  chateau  in  Burgundy."  Her  face  lit  up  and  she 
raised  herself  eagerly  on  her  elbow. 

"It's  the  most  wonderful  old  house  you  ever  saw:  a 
real  castle,  with  towers,  and  water  all  round  it,  and  a 
funny  kind  of  bridge  they  pull  up.  Chelles  said  he 
wanted  me  to  see  just  how  they  lived  at  home,  and  I 
did ;  I  saw  everything :  the  tapestries  that  Louis  Quinze 
gave  them,  and  the  family  portraits,  and  the  chapel, 
where  their  own  priest  says  mass,  and  they  sit  by  them 
selves  in  a  balcony  with  crowns  all  over  it.  The  priest 
was  a  lovely  old  man — he  said  he'd  give  anything  to 
convert  me.  Do  you  know,  I  think  there's  something  very 
beautiful  about  the  Roman  Catholic  religion?  I've  often 
felt  I  might  have  been  happier  if  I'd  had  some  religious 
influence  in  my  life." 

She  sighed  a  little,  and  turned  her  head  away.  She 
flattered  herself  that  she  had  learned  to  strike  the 
right  note  with  Van  Degen.  At  this  crucial  stage  he 
needed  a  taste  of  his  own  methods,  a  glimpse  of  the 
fact  that  there  were  women  in  the  world  who  could 
get  on  without  him. 

[289] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

He  continued  to  gaze  down  at  her  sulkily.  "Were  the 
old  people  there?  You  never  told  me  you  knew  his 
mother." 

"I  don't.  They  weren't  there.  But  it  didn't  make  a 
bit  of  difference,  because  Raymond  sent  down  a  cook 
from  the  Luxe." 

"Oh,  Lord,"  Van  Degen  groaned,  dropping  down  on 
the  end  of  the  sofa.  "Was  the  cook  got  down  to 
chaperon  you?" 

Undine  laughed.  "You  talk  like  Ralph!  I  had  Bertha 
with  me." 

"Bertha!"  His  tone  of  contempt  surprised  her.  She 
had  supposed  that  Mrs.  Shallum's  presence  had  made 
the  visit  perfectly  correct. 

"You  went  without  knowing  his  parents,  and  without 
their  inviting  you?  Don't  you  know  what  that  sort  of 
thing  means  out  here?  Chelles  did  it  to  brag  about  you 
at  his  club.  He  wants  to  compromise  you — that's  his 
game!" 

"Do  you  suppose  he  does?"  A  flicker  of  a  smile 
crossed  her  lips.  "I'm  so  unconventional:  when  I  like  a 
man  I  never  stop  to  think  about  such  things.  But  I 
ought  to,  of  course — you're  quite  right."  She  looked  at 
Van  Degen  thoughtfully.  "At  any  rate,  he's  not  a  mar 
ried  man." 

Van  Degen  had  got  to  his  feet  again  and  was  stand 
ing  accusingly  before  her;  but  as  she  spoke  the  blood 
rose  to  his  neck  and  ears. 

[290] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"What  difference  does  that  make?" 

"It  might  make  a  good  deal.  I  see,"  she  added,  "how 
careful  I  ought  to  be  about  going  round  with  you." 

"With  me?"  His  face  fell  at  the  retort;  then  he  broke 
into  a  laugh.  He  adored  Undine's  "smartness,"  which 
was  of  precisely  the  same  quality  as  his  own.  "Oh,  that's 
another  thing:  you  can  always  trust  me  to  look  after 
you!" 

"With  your  reputation?  Much  obliged!" 

Van  Degen  smiled.  She  knew  he  liked  such  al 
lusions,  and  was  pleased  that  she  thought  him  com 
promising. 

"Oh,  I'm  as  good  as  gold.  You've  made  a  new  man 
of  me!" 

"Have  I?"  She  considered  him  in  silence  for  a 
moment.  "I  wonder  what  you've  done  to  me  but 
make  a  discontented  woman  of  me — discontented  with 
everything  I  had  before  I  knew  you?" 

The  change  of  tone  was  thrilling  to  him.  He  forgot 
her  mockery,  forgot  his  rival,  and  sat  down  at  her 
side,  almost  in  possession  of  her  waist.  "Look  here,"  he 
asked,  "where  are  we  going  to  dine  to-night?" 

His  nearness  was  not  agreeable  to  Undine,  but  she 
liked  his  free  way,  his  contempt  for  verbal  prelimi 
naries.  Ralph's  reserves  and  delicacies,  his  perpetual 
desire  that  he  and  she  should  be  attuned  to  the  same 
key,  had  always  vaguely  bored  her;  whereas  in  Van 
Degen 's  manner  she  felt  a  hint  of  the  masterful  way 
[291] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

that  had  once  subdued  her  in  Elmer  Moffatt.  But  she 
drew  back,  releasing  herself. 

"To-night?  I  can't— I'm  engaged." 

"I  know  you  are:  engaged  to  me!  You  promised  last 
Sunday  you'd  dine  with  me  out  of  town  to-night." 

"How  can  I  remember  what  I  promised  last  Sunday? 
Besides,  after  what  you've  said,  I  see  I  oughtn't  to." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  what  I've  said?" 

"Why,  that  I'm  imprudent;  that  people  are  talk 
ing " 

He  stood  up  with  an  angry  laugh.  "I  suppose  you're 
dining  with  Chelles.  Is  that  it?" 

"Is  that  the  way  you  cross-examine  Clare?" 

"I  don't  care  a  hang  what  Clare  does — I  never  have." 

"That  must— in  some  ways — be  rather  convenient 
for  her!" 

"Glad  you  think  so.  Are  you  dining  with  him?" 

She  slowly  turned  the  wedding-ring  upon  her  finger. 
"You  know  I'm  not  married  to  you — yet!" 

He  took  a  random  turn  through  the  room;  then 
he  came  back  and  planted  himself  wrathfully  before 
her.  "  Can't  you  see  the  man's  doing  his  best  to  make 
a  fool  of  you?" 

She  kept  her  amused  gaze  on  him.  "Does  it  strike 
you  that  it's  such  an  awfully  easy  thing  to  do?" 

The  edges  of  his  ears  were  purple.  "I  sometimes 
think  it's  easier  for  these  damned  little  dancing-mas 
ters  than  for  one  of  us." 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Undine  was  still  smiling  up  at  him;  but  suddenly 
her  face  grew  grave.  "What  does  it  matter  what  I  do 
or  don't  do,  when  Ralph  has  ordered  me  home  next 
week?" 

"Ordered  you  home?"  His  face  changed.  "Well, 
you're  not  going,  are  you?" 

"What's  the  use  of  saying  such  things?"  She  gave 
a  disenchanted  laugh.  "  I'm  a  poor  man's  wife,  and  can't 
do  the  things  my  friends  do.  It's  not  because  Ralph 
loves  me  that  he  wants  me  back — it's  simply  because 
he  can't  afford  to  let  me  stay!" 

Van  Degen's  perturbation  was  increasing.  "But  you 
mustn't  go — it's  preposterous!  Why  should  a  woman 
like  you  be  sacrificed  when  a  lot  of  dreary  frumps  have 
everything  they  want?  Besides,  you  can't  chuck  me 
like  this!  Why,  we're  all  to  motor  down  to  Aix  next 
week,  and  perhaps  take  a  dip  into  Italy — 

"  Oh,  Italy —     •"  she  murmured  on  a  note  of  yearning. 

He  was  closer  now,  and  had  her  hands.  "You'd 
love  that,  wouldn't  you?  As  far  as  Venice,  anyhow; 
and  then  in  August  there's  Trouville — you've  never 
tried  Trouville?  There's  an  awfully  jolly  crowd  there — 
and  the  motoring's  ripping  in  Normandy.  If  you  say  so 
I'll  take  a  villa  there  instead  of  going  back  to  Newport. 
And  I'll  put  the  Sorceress  in  commission,  and  you  can 
make  up  parties  and  run  off  whenever  you  like,  to  Scot 
land  or  Norway "  He  hung  above  her.  "Don't  dine 

with  Chelles  to-night!  Come  with  me,  and  we'll  talk 
[293] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

things  over;  and  next  week  we'll  run  down  to  Trouville 
to  choose  the  villa." 

Undine's  heart  was  beating  fast,  but  she  felt  within 
her  a  strange  lucid  force  of  resistance.  Because  of 
that  sense  of  security  she  left  her  hands  in  Van 
Degen's.  So  Mr.  Spragg  might  have  felt  at  the  tens 
est  hour  of  the  Pure  Water  move.  She  leaned  for 
ward,  holding  her  suitor  off  by  the  pressure  of  her  bent- 
back  palms. 

"Kiss  me  good-bye,  Peter;  I  sail  on  Wednesday," 
she  said. 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  permitted  him  a  kiss, 
and  as  his  face  darkened  down  on  her  she  felt  a  mo 
ment's  recoil.  But  her  physical  reactions  were  never 
very  acute:  she  always  vaguely  wondered  why  people 
made  "such  a  fuss,"  were  so  violently  for  or  against 
such  demonstrations.  A  cool  spirit  within  her  seemed 
to  watch  over  and  regulate  her  sensations,  and  leave 
her  capable  of  measuring  the  intensity  of  those  she 
provoked. 

She  turned  to  look  at  the  clock.  "You  must  go  now 
— I  shall  be  hours  late  for  dinner." 

"  Go— after  that?  "  He  held  her  fast.  "  Kiss  me  again," 
he  commanded. 

It  was  wonderful  how  cool  she  felt — how  easily 
she  could  slip  out  of  his  grasp!  Any  man  could  be 
managed  like  a  child  if  he  were  really  in  love  with 
one.  .  . 

[294] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Don't  be  a  goose,  Peter;  do  you  suppose  I'd  have 
kissed  you  if " 

"If  what — what — what?"  he  mimicked  her  ecstat 
ically,  not  listening. 

She  saw  that  if  she  wished  to  make  him  hear  her  she 
must  put  more  distance  between  them,  and  she  rose 
and  moved  across  the  room.  From  the  fireplace  she 
turned  to  add — "if  we  hadn't  been  saying  good-bye?" 

"Good-bye — now?  What's  the  use  of  talking  like 
that?"  He  jumped  up  and  followed  her.  "Look  here, 
Undine — I'll  do  anything  on  earth  you  want;  only 
don't  talk  of  going!  If  you'll  only  stay  I'll  make  it 
all  as  straight  and  square  as  you  please.  I'll  get  Bertha 
Shallum  to  stop  over  with  you  for  the  summer;  I'll 
take  a  house  at  Trouville  and  make  my  wife  come  out 
there.  Hang  it,  she  shall,  if  you  say  so !  Only  be  a  little 
good  to  me!" 

Still  she  stood  before  him  without  speaking,  aware 
that  her  implacable  brows  and  narrowed  lips  would 
hold  him  off  as  long  as  she  chose. 

"What's  the  matter,  Undine?  Why  don't  you  an 
swer?  You  know  you  can't  go  back  to  that  deadly 
dry-rot!" 

She  swept  about  on  him  with  indignant  eyes.  "I 
can't  go  on  with  my  present  life  either.  It's  hateful 
— as  hateful  as  the  other.  If  I  don't  go  home  I've 
got  to  decide  on  something  different." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'something  different'?"  She 
[295] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

was  silent,  and  he  insisted:  "Are  you  really  thinking 
of  marrying  Chelles?" 

She  started  as  if  he  had  surprised  a  secret.  "I'll  never 
forgive  you  if  you  speak  of  it — 

"Good  Lord!  Good  Lord!"  he  groaned. 

She  remained  motionless,  with  lowered  lids,  and  he 
went  up  to  her  and  pulled  her  about  so  that  she  faced 
him.  "Undine,  honour  bright — do  you  think  he'll  marry 
you?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  sudden  hardness  in  her 
eyes.  "I  really  can't  discuss  such  things  with  you." 

"Oh,  for  the  Lord's  sake  don't  take  that  tone!  I 
don't  half  know  what  I'm  saying  .  .  .  but  you  mustn't 
throw  yourself  away  a  second  time.  I'll  do  anything  you 
want — I  swear  I  will!" 

A  knock  on  the  door  sent  them  apart,  and  a  servant 
entered  with  a  telegram. 

Undine  turned  away  to  the  window  with  the  nar 
row  blue  slip.  She  was  glad  of  the  interruption:  the 
sense  of  what  she  had  at  stake  made  her  want  to  pause 
a  moment  and  to  draw  breath. 

The  message  was  a  long  cable  signed  with  Laura  Fair- 
ford's  name.  It  told  her  that  Ralph  had  been  taken  sud 
denly  ill  with  pneumonia,  that  his  condition  was  serious 
and  that  the  doctors  advised  his  wife's  immediate  return. 

Undine  had  to  read  the  words  over  two  or  three 
times  to  get  them  into  her  crowded  mind;  and  even 
after  she  had  done  so  she  needed  more  time  to  see 
[  296  ] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

their  bearing  on  her  own  situation.  If  the  message 
had  concerned  her  boy  her  brain  would  have  acted 
more  quickly.  She  had  never  troubled  herself  over 
the  possibility  of  Paul's  falling  ill  in  her  absence, 
but  she  understood  now  that  if  the  cable  had  been 
about  him  she  would  have  rushed  to  the  earliest 
steamer.  With  Ralph  it  was  different.  Ralph  was  al 
ways  perfectly  well — she  could  not  picture  him  as  being 
suddenly  at  death's  door  and  in  need  of  her.  Prob 
ably  his  mother  and  sister  had  had  a  panic:  they  were 
always  full  of  sentimental  terrors.  The  next  moment  an 
angry  suspicion  flashed  across  her:  what  if  the  cable 
were  a  device  of  the  Marvell  women  to  bring  her  back? 
Perhaps  it  had  been  sent  with  Ralph's  connivance!  No 
doubt  Bowen  had  written  home  about  her — Washing 
ton  Square  had  received  some  monstrous  report  of  her 
doings!  .  .  .  Yes,  the  cable  was  clearly  an  echo  of 
Laura's  letter — mother  and  daughter  had  cooked  it  up 
to  spoil  her  pleasure.  Once  the  thought  had  occurred  to 
her  it  struck  root  in  her  mind  and  began  to  throw  out 
giant  branches. 

Van  Degen  followed  her  to  the  window,  his  face  still 
flushed  and  working.  "What's  the  matter?"  he  asked, 
as  she  continued  to  stare  silently  at  the  telegram. 

She  crumpled  the  strip  of  paper  in  her  hand.  If  only 
she  had  been  alone,  had  had  a  chance  to  think  out  her 
answers ! 

"What  on  earth's  the  matter?"  he  repeated. 
[297] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"Oh,  nothing — nothing." 

"Nothing?  When  you're  as  white  as  a  sheet?" 

"Am  I?"  She  gave  a  slight  laugh.  "It's  only  a  cable 
from  home." 

"Ralph?" 

She  hesitated.  "No.  Laura." 

"What  the  devil  is  she  cabling  you  about?" 

"She  says  Ralph  wants  me." 

"Now— at  once?" 

"At  once." 

Van  Degen  laughed  impatiently.  "Why  don't  he  tell 
you  so  himself?  What  business  is  it  of  Laura  Fair- 
ford's?" 

Undine's  gesture  implied  a  "What  indeed?" 

"Is  that  all  she  says?" 

She  hesitated  again.  "Yes — that's  all."  As  she  spoke 
she  tossed  the  telegram  into  the  basket  beneath  the 
writing-table.  "As  if  I  didn't  have  to  go  anyhow?"  she 
exclaimed. 

With  an  aching  clearness  of  vision  she  saw  what  lay 
before  her — the  hurried  preparations,  the  long  tedious 
voyage  on  a  steamer  chosen  at  haphazard,  the  arrival 
in  the  deadly  July  heat,  and  the  relapse  into  all  the 
insufferable  daily  fag  of  nursery  and  kitchen — she  saw 
it  and  her  imagination  recoiled. 

Van  Degen's  eyes  still  hung  on  her:  she  guessed  that 
he  was  intensely  engaged  in  trying  to  follow  what  was 
passing  through  her  mind.  Presently  he  came  up  to  her 
[298] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

again,  no  longer  perilous  and  importunate,  but  awk 
wardly  tender,  ridiculously  moved  by  her  distress. 

"Undine,  listen:  won't  you  let  me  make  it  all  right 
for  you  to  stay?" 

Her  heart  began  to  beat  more  quickly,  and  she  let 
him  come  close,  meeting  his  eyes  coldly  but  without  anger. 

"What  do  you  call  'making  it  all  right'?  Paying  my 
bills?  Don't  you  see  that's  what  I  hate,  and  will  never 
let  myself  be  dragged  into  again?"  She  laid  her  hand 
on  his  arm.  "The  time  has  come  when  I  must  be  sen 
sible,  Peter;  that's  why  we  must  say  good-bye." 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  you're  going  back  to 
Ralph?" 

She  paused  a  moment;  then  she  murmured  between 
her  lips:  "I  shall  never  go  back  to  him." 

"Then  you  do  mean  to  marry  Chelles?" 

"I've  told  you  we  must  say  good-bye.  I've  got  to 
look  out  for  my  future." 

He  stood  before  her,  irresolute,  tormented,  his  lazy 
mind  and  impatient  senses  labouring  with  a  problem 
beyond  their  power.  "Ain't  I  here  to  look  out  for  your 
future?"  he  said  at  last. 

"No  one  shall  look  out  for  it  in  the  way  you  mean. 
I'd  rather  never  see  you  again " 

He  gave  her  a  baffled  stare.  "Oh,  damn  it — if  that's 
the  way  you  feel!"  He  turned  and  flung  away  toward 
the  door. 

She  stood  motionless  where  he  left  her,  every  nerve 
[299] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

strung  to  the  highest  pitch  of  watchfulness.  As  she  stood 
there,  the  scene  about  her  stamped  itself  on  her  brain 
with  the  sharpest  precision.  She  was  aware  of  the  fading 
of  the  summer  light  outside,  of  the  movements  of  her 
maid,  who  was  laying  out  her  dinner-dress  in  the  room 
beyond,  and  of  the  fact  that  the  tea-roses  on  her  writ 
ing-table,  shaken  by  Van  Degen's  tread,  were  dropping 
their  petals  over  Ralph's  letter,  and  down  on  the  crum 
pled  telegram  which  she  could  see  through  the  trellised 
sides  of  the  scrap-basket. 

In  another  moment  Van  Degen  would  be  gone.  Worse 
yet,  while  he  wavered  in  the  doorway  the  Shallums  and 
Chelles,  after  vainly  awaiting  her,  might  dash  back  from 
the  Bois  and  break  in  on  them.  These  and  other  chances 
rose  before  her,  urging  her  to  action;  but  she  held  fast, 
immovable,  unwavering,  a  proud  yet  plaintive  image  of 
renunciation. 

Van  Degen's  hand  was  on  the  door.  He  half-opened 
it  and  then  turned  back. 

"That's  all  you've  got  to  say,  then?" 

"That's  all." 

He  jerked  the  door  open  and  passed  out.  She  saw  him 
stop  in  the  ante-room  to  pick  up  his  hat  and  stick, 
his  heavy  figure  silhouetted  against  the  glare  of  the 
wall-lights.  A  ray  of  the  same  light  fell  on  her  where 
she  stood  in  the  unlit  sitting-room,  and  her  reflection 
bloomed  out  like  a  flower  from  the  mirror  that  faced 
her.  She  looked  at  the  image  and  waited. 
[300] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Van  Degen  put  his  hat  on  his  head  and  slowly  opened 
the  door  into  the  outer  hall.  Then  he  turned  abruptly, 
his  bulk  eclipsing  her  reflection  as  he  plunged  back  into 
the  room  and  came  up  to  her. 

"I'll  do  anything  you  say,  Undine;  I'll  do  anything 
in  God's  world  to  keep  you!" 

She  turned  her  eyes  from  the  mirror  and  let  them 
rest  on  his  face,  which  looked  as  small  and  withered  as 
an  old  man's,  with  a  lower  lip  that  trembled  queerly.  .  . 


301] 


BOOK    III 


XXI 

spring  in  New  York  proceeded  through  more 
JL     than  its  usual  extremes  of  temperature  to  the 
threshold  of  a  sultry  June. 

Ralph  Marvell,  wearily  bent  to  his  task,  felt  the  fan 
tastic  humours  of  the  weather  as  only  one  more  in 
coherence  in  the  general  chaos  of  his  case.  It  was 
strange  enough,  after  four  years  of  marriage,  to  find 
himself  again  in  his  old  brown  room  in  Washington 
Square.  It  was  hardly  there  that  he  had  expected  Peg 
asus  to  land  him;  and,  like  a  man  returning  to  the 
scenes  of  his  childhood,  he  found  everything  on  a  much 
smaller  scale  than  he  had  imagined.  Had  the  Dagonet 
boundaries  really  narrowed,  or  had  the  breach  in  the 
walls  of  his  own  life  let  in  a  wider  vision? 

Certainly  there  had  come  to  be  other  differences  be 
tween  his  present  and  his  former  self  than  that  embod 
ied  in  the  presence  of  his  little  boy  in  the  next  room. 
Paul,  in  fact,  was  now  the  chief  link  between  Ralph  and 
his  past.  Concerning  his  son  he  still  felt  and  thought,  in  a 
general  way,  in  the  terms  of  the  Dagonet  tradition;  he 
still  wanted  to  implant  in  Paul  some  of  the  reserves 
and  discriminations  which  divided  that  tradition  from 
[305] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

the  new  spirit  of  limitless  concession.  But  for  himself  it 
was  different.  Since  his  transaction  with  Moffatt  he  had 
had  the  sense  of  living  under  a  new  dispensation.  He 
was  not  sure  that  it  was  any  worse  than  the  other;  but 
then  he  was  no  longer  very  sure  about  anything.  Per 
haps  this  growing  indifference  was  merely  the  reaction 
from  a  long  nervous  strain:  that  his  mother  and  sister 
thought  it  so  was  shown  by  the  way  in  which  they 
mutely  watched  and  hovered.  Their  discretion  was  like 
the  hushed  tread  about  a  sick-bed.  They  permitted 
themselves  no  criticism  of  Undine;  he  was  asked  no 
awkward  questions,  subjected  to  no  ill-timed  sympa 
thy.  They  simply  took  him  back,  on  his  own  terms,  into 
the  life  he  had  left  them  to;  and  their  silence  had  none 
of  those  subtle  implications  of  disapproval  which  may 
be  so  much  more  wounding  than  speech. 

For  a  while  he  received  a  weekly  letter  from  Undine. 
Vague  and  disappointing  though  they  were,  these  mis 
sives  helped  him  through  the  days;  but  he  looked  for 
ward  to  them  rather  as  a  pretext  for  replies  than  for 
their  actual  contents.  Undine  was  never  at  a  loss  for 
the  spoken  word:  Ralph  had  often  wondered  at  her 
verbal  range  and  her  fluent  use  of  terms  outside  the 
current  vocabulary.  She  had  certainly  not  picked  these 
up  in  books,  since  she  never  opened  one:  they  seemed 
rather  like  some  odd  transmission  of  her  preaching 
grandparent's  oratory.  But  in  her  brief  and  colourless 
letters  she  repeated  the  same  bald  statements  in  the 
[  306] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

same  few  terms.  She  was  well,  she  had  been  "round" 
with  Bertha  Shallum,  she  had  dined  with  the  Jim  Dris- 
colls  or  May  Beringer  or  Dicky  Bowles,  the  weather  was 
too  lovely  or  too  awful;  such  was  the  gist  of  her  news. 
On  the  last  page  she  hoped  Paul  was  well  and  sent  him 
a  kiss;  but  she  never  made  a  suggestion  concerning  his 
care  or  asked  a  question  about  his  pursuits.  One  could 
only  infer  that,  knowing  in  what  good  hands  he  was, 
she  judged  such  solicitude  superfluous;  and  it  was  thus 
that  Ralph  put  the  matter  to  his  mother. 

"Of  course  she's  not  worrying  about  the  boy — why 
should  she?  She  knows  that  with  you  and  Laura  he's 
as  happy  as  a  king." 

To  which  Mrs.  Mar  veil  would  answer  gravely: 
"When  you  write,  be  sure  to  say  I  shan't  put  on  his 
thinner  flannels  as  long  as  this  east  wind  lasts." 

As  for  her  husband's  welfare,  Undine's  sole  allusion 
to  it  consisted  in  the  invariable  expression  of  the  hope 
that  he  was  getting  along  all  right:  the  phrase  was 
always  the  same,  and  Ralph  learned  to  know  just  how 
far  down  the  third  page  to  look  for  it.  In  a  postscript  she 
sometimes  asked  him  to  tell  her  mother  about  a  new 
way  of  doing  hair  or  cutting  a  skirt;  and  this  was  usu 
ally  the  most  eloquent  passage  of  the  letter. 

What  satisfaction  he  extracted  from  these  communi 
cations  he  would  have  found  it  hard  to  say;  yet  when 
they  did  not  come  he  missed  them  hardly  less  than  if 
they  had  given  him  all  he  craved.  Sometimes  the  mere 
[3071 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

act  of  holding  the  blue  or  mauve  sheet  and  breathing 
its  scent  was  like  holding  his  wife's  hand  and  being  en 
veloped  in  her  fresh  young  fragrance:  the  sentimental 
disappointment  vanished  in  the  penetrating  physical 
sensation.  In  other  moods  it  was  enough  to  trace  the 
letters  of  the  first  line  and  the  last  for  the  desert  of 
perfunctory  phrases  between  the  two  to  vanish,  leav 
ing  him  only  the  vision  of  their  interlaced  names,  as  of  a 
mystic  bond  which  her  own  hand  had  tied.  Or  else  he 
saw  her,  closely,  palpably  before  him,  as  she  sat  at  her 
writing-table,  frowning  and  a  little  flushed,  her  bent 
nape  showing  the  light  on  her  hair,  her  short  lip  pulled 
up  by  the  effort  of  composition;  and  this  picture  had  the 
violent  reality  of  dream-images  on  the  verge  of  waking. 
At  other  times,  as  he  read  her  letter,  he  felt  simply  that 
at  least  in  the  moment  of  writing  it  she  had  been  with 
him.  But  in  one  of  the  last  she  had  said  (to  excuse  a 
bad  blot  and  an  incoherent  sentence):  "Everybody's 
talking  to  me  at  once,  and  I  don't  know  what  I'm  writ 
ing."  That  letter  he  had  thrown  into  the  fire.  .  . 

After  the  first  few  weeks,  the  letters  came  less  and 
less  regularly:  at  the  end  of  two  months  they  ceased. 
Ralph  had  got  into  the  habit  of  watching  for  them  on 
the  days  when  a  foreign  post  was  due,  and  as  the  weeks 
went  by  without  a  sign  he  began  to  invent  excuses  for 
leaving  the  office  earlier  and  hurrying  back  to  Wash 
ington  Square  to  search  the  letter-box  for  a  big  tinted 
envelope  with  a  straggling  blotted  superscription.  Un- 
[3081 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

dine's  departure  had  given  him  a  momentary  sense  of 
liberation:  at  that  stage  in  their  relations  any  change 
would  have  brought  relief.  But  now  that  she  was  gone 
he  knew  she  could  never  really  go.  Though  his  feeling  for 
her  had  changed,  it  still  ruled  his  life.  If  he  saw  her  in 
her  weakness  he  felt  her  in  her  power:  the  power  of 
youth  and  physical  radiance  that  clung  to  his  disen 
chanted  memories  as  the  scent  she  used  clung  to  her  let 
ters.  Looking  back  at  their  four  years  of  marriage  he 
began  to  ask  himself  if  he  had  done  all  he  could  to 
draw  her  half-formed  spirit  from  its  sleep.  Had  he  not 
expected  too  much  at  first,  and  grown  too  indifferent 
in  the  sequel?  After  all,  she  was  still  in  the  toy  age; 
and  perhaps  the  very  extravagance  of  his  love  had  re 
tarded  her  growth,  helped  to  imprison  her  in  a  little 
circle  of  frivolous  illusions.  But  the  last  months  had 
made  a  man  of  him,  and  when  she  came  back  he 
would  know  how  to  lift  her  to  the  height  of  his 
experience. 

So  he  would  reason,  day  by  day,  as  he  hastened  back 
to  Washington  Square;  but  when  he  opened  the  door, 
and  his  first  glance  at  the  hall  table  showed  him  there 
was  no  letter  there,  his  illusions  shrivelled  down  to 
their  weak  roots.  She  had  not  written:  she  did  not 
mean  to  write.  He  and  the  boy  were  no  longer  a  part  of 
her  life.  When  she  came  back  everything  would  be  as 
it  had  been  before,  with  the  dreary  difference  that  she 
had  tasted  new  pleasures  and  that  their  absence  would 
[3091 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

take  the  savour  from  all  he  had  to  give  her.  Then  the 
coming  of  another  foreign  mail  would  lift  his  hopes,  and 
as  he  hurried  home  he  would  imagine  new  reasons  for 
expecting  a  letter.  .  . 

Week  after  week  he  swung  between  the  extremes  of 
hope  and  dejection,  and  at  last,  when  the  strain  had 
become  unbearable,  he  cabled  her.  The  answer  ran: 
"Very  well  best  love  writing";  but  the  promised  letter 
never  came.  .  . 

He  went  on  steadily  with  his  work:  he  even  passed 
through  a  phase  of  exaggerated  energy.  But  his  baffled 
youth  fought  in  him  for  air.  Was  this  to  be  the  end? 
Was  he  to  wear  his  life  out  in  useless  drudgery?  The 
plain  prose  of  it,  of  course,  was  that  the  economic  situ 
ation  remained  unchanged  by  the  sentimental  catas 
trophe  and  that  he  must  go  on  working  for  his  wife  and 
child.  But  at  any  rate,  as  it  was  mainly  for  Paul  that 
he  would  henceforth  work,  it  should  be  on  his  own  terms 
and  according  to  his  inherited  notions  of  "straight- 
ness."  He  would  never  again  engage  in  any  transaction 
resembling  his  compact  with  Moffatt.  Even  now  he  was 
not  sure  there  had  been  anything  crooked  in  that;  but 
the  fact  of  his  having  instinctively  referred  the  point 
to  Mr.  Spragg  rather  than  to  his  grandfather  implied  a 
presumption  against  it. 

His  partners  were  quick  to  profit  by  his  sudden 
spurt  of  energy,  and  his  work  grew  no  lighter.  He  was 
not  only  the  youngest  and  most  recent  member  of  the 
[  310  1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

firm,  but  the  one  who  had  so  far  added  least  to  the  vol 
ume  of  its  business.  His  hours  were  the  longest,  his 
absences,  as  summer  approached,  the  least  frequent  and 
the  most  grudgingly  accorded.  No  doubt  his  associates 
knew  that  he  was  pressed  for  money  and  could  not 
risk  a  break.  They  "worked"  him,  and  he  was  aware  of 
it,  and  submitted  because  he  dared  not  lose  his  job. 
But  the  long  hours  of  mechanical  drudgery  were  telling 
on  his  active  body  and  undisciplined  nerves.  He  had  be 
gun  too  late  to  subject  himself  to  the  persistent  morti 
fication  of  spirit  and  flesh  which  is  a  condition  of  the 
average  business  life;  and  after  the  long  dull  days  in  the 
office  the  evenings  at  his  grandfather's  whist-table  did 
not  give  him  the  counter-stimulus  he  needed. 

Almost  every  one  had  gone  out  of  town ;  but  now  and 
then  Miss  Ray  came  to  dine,  and  Ralph,  seated  beneath 
the  family  portraits  and  opposite  the  desiccated  Har 
riet,  who  had  already  faded  to  the  semblance  of  one 
of  her  own  great-aunts,  listened  languidly  to  the  kind 
of  talk  that  the  originals  might  have  exchanged  about 
the  same  table  when  New  York  gentility  centred  in 
the  Battery  and  the  Bowling  Green.  Mr.  Dagonet  was 
always  pleasant  to  see  and  hear,  but  his  sarcasms  were 
growing  faint  and  recondite:  they  had  as  little  bearing 
on  life  as  the  humours  of  a  Restoration  comedy.  As 
for  Mrs.  Mar  veil  and  Miss  Ray,  they  seemed  to  the 
young  man  even  more  spectrally  remote:  hardly  any 
thing  that  mattered  to  him  existed  for  them,  and  their 
[3111 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

prejudices  reminded  him  of  sign-posts  warning  off  tres 
passers  who  have  long  since  ceased  to  intrude. 

Now  and  then  he  dined  at  his  club  and  went  on  to  the 
theatre  with  some  young  men  of  his  own  age;  but  he 
left  them  afterward,  half  vexed  with  himself  for  not 
being  in  the  humour  to  prolong  the  adventure.  There 
were  moments  when  he  would  have  liked  to  affirm  his 
freedom  in  however  commonplace  a  way:  moments 
when  the  vulgarest  way  would  have  seemed  the  most 
satisfying.  But  he  always  ended  by  walking  home 
alone  and  tip-toeing  upstairs  through  the  sleeping  house 
lest  he  should  wake  his  boy.  .  . 

On  Saturday  afternoons,  when  the  business  world 
was  hurrying  to  the  country  for  golf  and  tennis,  he 
stayed  in  town  and  took  Paul  to  see  the  Spraggs.  Sev 
eral  times  since  his  wife's  departure  he  had  tried  to 
bring  about  closer  relations  between  his  own  family 
and  Undine's;  and  the  ladies  of  Washington  Square,  in 
their  eagerness  to  meet  his  wishes,  had  made  various 
friendly  advances  to  Mrs.  Spragg.  But  they  were  met 
by  a  mute  resistance  which  made  Ralph  suspect  that 
Undine's  strictures  on  his  family  had  taken  root  in  her 
mother's  brooding  mind;  and  he  gave  up  the  struggle 
to  bring  together  what  had  been  so  effectually  put 
asunder. 

If  he  regretted  his  lack  of  success  it  was  chiefly  be 
cause  he  was  so  sorry  for  the  Spraggs.  Soon  after  Un 
dine's  marriage  they  had  abandoned  their  polychrome 
[312] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

suite  at  the  Stentorian,  and  since  then  their  peregri 
nations  had  carried  them  through  half  the  hotels  of 
the  metropolis.  Undine,  who  had  early  discovered  her 
mistake  in  thinking  hotel  life  fashionable,  had  tried  to 
persuade  her  parents  to  take  a  house  of  their  own; 
but  though  they  refrained  from  taxing  her  with  incon 
sistency  they  did  not  act  on  her  suggestion.  Mrs.  Spragg 
seemed  to  shrink  from  the  thought  of  "going  back  to 
house-keeping,"  and  Ralph  suspected  that  she  de 
pended  on  the  transit  from  hotel  to  hotel  as  the  one 
element  of  variety  in  her  life.  As  for  Mr.  Spragg,  it  was 
impossible  to  imagine  any  one  in  whom  the  domestic 
sentiments  were  more  completely  unlocalized  and  dis 
connected  from  any  fixed  habits;  and  he  was  probably 
aware  of  his  changes  of  abode  chiefly  as  they  obliged 
him  to  ascend  from  the  Subway,  or  descend  from  the 
"Elevated,"  a  few  blocks  higher  up  or  lower  down. 

Neither  husband  nor  wife  complained  to  Ralph  of 
their  frequent  displacements,  or  assigned  to  them  any 
cause  save  the  vague  one  of  "guessing  they  could  do 
better";  but  Ralph  noticed  that  the  decreasing  luxury 
of  their  life  synchronized  with  Undine's  growing  de 
mands  for  money.  During  the  last  few  months  they 
had  transferred  themselves  to  the  "Malibran,"  a  tall 
narrow  structure  resembling  a  grain-elevator  divided 
into  cells,  where  linoleum  and  lincrusta  simulated  the 
stucco  and  marble  of  the  Stentorian,  and  fagged  busi 
ness  men  and  their  families  consumed  the  watery  stews 
[3131 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

dispensed  by  "coloured  help"  in  the  grey  twilight  of 
a  basement  dining-room. 

Mrs.  Spragg  had  no  sitting-room,  and  Paul  and  his 
father  had  to  be  received  in  one  of  the  long  public 
parlours,  between  ladies  seated  at  rickety  desks  in  the 
throes  of  correspondence  and  groups  of  listlessly  con 
versing  residents  and  callers. 

The  Spraggs  were  intensely  proud  of  their  grandson, 
and  Ralph  perceived  that  they  would  have  liked  to 
see  Paul  charging  uproariously  from  group  to  group 
and  thrusting  his  bright  curls  and  cherubic  smile  upon 
the  general  attention.  The  fact  that  the  boy  preferred 
to  stand  between  his  grandfather's  knees  and  play 
with  Mr.  Spragg's  Masonic  emblem,  or  dangle  his  legs 
from  the  arm  of  Mrs.  Spragg's  chair,  seemed  to  his 
grandparents  evidence  of  ill-health  or  undue  repres 
sion,  and  he  was  subjected  by  Mrs.  Spragg  to  search 
ing  enquiries  as  to  how  his  food  set,  and  whether  he 
didn't  think  his  Popper  was  too  strict  with  him.  A 
more  embarrassing  problem  was  raised  by  the  "sur 
prise"  (in  the  shape  of  peanut  candy  or  chocolate 
creams)  which  he  was  invited  to  hunt  for  in  Gran'ma's 
pockets,  and  which  Ralph  had  to  confiscate  on  the  way 
home  lest  the  dietary  rules  of  Washington  Square 
should  be  too  visibly  infringed. 

Sometimes  Ralph  found  Mrs.  Heeny,  ruddy  and  jo 
vial,  seated  in  the  arm-chair  opposite  Mrs.  Spragg,  and 
regaling  her  with  selections  from  a  new  batch  of  clip- 
[3141 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

pings.  During  Undine's  illness  of  the  previous  winter 
Mrs.  Heeny  had  become  a  familiar  figure  to  Paul,  who 
had  learned  to  expect  almost  as  much  from  her  bag  as 
from  his  grandmother's  pockets;  so  that  the  intem 
perate  Saturdays  at  the  Malibran  were  usually  followed 
by  languid  and  abstemious  Sundays  in  Washington 
Square. 

Mrs.  Heeny,  being  unaware  of  this  sequel  to  her 
bounties,  formed  the  habit  of  appearing  regularly  on 
Saturdays,  and  while  she  chatted  with  his  grandmother 
the  little  boy  was  encouraged  to  scatter  the  grimy  car 
pet  with  face-creams  and  bunches  of  clippings  in  his 
thrilling  quest  for  the  sweets  at  the  bottom  of  her  bag. 

"I  declare,  if  he  ain't  in  just  as  much  of  a  hurry 
f'r  everything  as  his  mother!"  she  exclaimed  one  day 
in  her  rich  rolling  voice;  and  stooping  to  pick  up  a  long 
strip  of  newspaper  which  Paul  had  flung  aside  she  added, 
as  she  smoothed  it  out:  "I  guess  'f  he  was  a  little  mite 
older  he'd  be  better  pleased  with  this  'n  with  the  candy. 
It's  the  very  thing  I  was  trying  to  find  for  you  the  other 
day,  Mrs.  Spragg,"  she  went  on,  holding  the  bit  of 
paper  at  arm's  length;  and  she  began  to  read  out,  with 
a  loudness  proportioned  to  the  distance  between  her 
eyes  and  the  text: 

"With  two  such  sprinters  as  'Pete'  Van  Degen  and 

Dicky  Bowles  to  set  the  pace,  it's  no  wonder  the  New 

York  set  in  Paris  has  struck  a  livelier  gait  than  ever 

this  spring.  It's  a  high-pressure  season  and  no  mistake, 

[315] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  no  one  lags  behind  less  than  the  fascinating  Mrs. 
Ralph  Marvell,  who  is  to  be  seen  daily  and  nightly 
in  all  the  smartest  restaurants  and  naughtiest  theatres, 
with  so  many  devoted  swains  in  attendance  that  the 
rival  beauties  of  both  worlds  are  said  to  be  making 
catty  comments.  But  then  Mrs.  Marvell's  gowns  are 
almost  as  good  as  her  looks — and  how  can  you  expect 
the  other  women  to  stand  for  such  a  monopoly?" 

To  escape  the  strain  of  these  visits,  Ralph  once  or 
twice  tried  the  experiment  of  leaving  Paul  with  his 
grand-parents  and  calling  for  him  in  the  late  afternoon; 
but  one  day,  on  re-entering  the  Malibran,  he  was  met 
by  a  small  abashed  figure  clad  in  a  kaleidoscopic  tartan 
and  a  green  velvet  cap  with  a  silver  thistle.  After  this 
experience  of  the  "surprises"  of  which  Gran'ma  was 
capable  when  she  had  a  chance  to  take  Paul  shopping 
Ralph  did  not  again  venture  to  leave  his  son,  and 
their  subsequent  Saturdays  were  passed  together  in  the 
sultry  gloom  of  the  Malibran. 

Conversation  with  the  Spraggs  was  almost  impos 
sible.  Ralph  could  talk  with  his  father-in-law  in  his 
office,  but  in  the  hotel  parlour  Mr.  Spragg  sat  in  a  ru 
minating  silence  broken  only  by  the  emission  of  an  occa 
sional  "Well — well"  addressed  to  his  grandson.  As  for 
Mrs.  Spragg,  her  son-in-law  could  not  remember  having 
had  a  sustained  conversation  with  her  since  the  distant 
day  when  he  had  first  called  at  the  Stentorian,  and  had 
been  "entertained,"  in  Undine's  absence,  by  her  as- 
[3161 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

tonished  mother.  The  shock  of  that  encounter  had 
moved  Mrs.  Spragg  to  eloquence;  but  Ralph's  entrance 
into  the  family,  without  making  him  seem  less  of  a 
stranger,  appeared  once  for  all  to  have  relieved  her 
of  the  obligation  of  finding  something  to  say  to 
him. 

The  one  question  she  invariably  asked:  "You  heard 
from  Undie?"  had  been  relatively  easy  to  answer  while 
his  wife's  infrequent  letters  continued  to  arrive;  but  a 
Saturday  came  when  he  felt  the  blood  rise  to  his  tem 
ples  as,  for  the  fourth  consecutive  week,  he  stammered 
out,  under  the  snapping  eyes  of  Mrs.  Heeny:  "No,  not 
by  this  post  either — I  begin  to  think  I  must  have  lost 
a  letter";  and  it  was  then  that  Mr.  Spragg,  who  had 
sat  silently  looking  up  at  the  ceiling,  cut  short  his 
wife's  exclamation  by  an  enquiry  about  real  estate  in 
the  Bronx.  After  that,  Ralph  noticed,  Mrs.  Spragg 
never  again  renewed  her  question;  and  he  understood 
that  his  father-in-law  had  guessed  his  embarrassment 
and  wished  to  spare  it. 

Ralph  had  never  thought  of  looking  for  any  deli 
cacy  of  feeling  under  Mr.  Spragg's  large  lazy  irony,  and 
the  incident  drew  the  two  men  nearer  together.  Mrs. 
Spragg,  for  her  part,  was  certainly  not  delicate;  but  she 
was  simple  and  without  malice,  and  Ralph  liked  her  for 
her  silent  acceptance  of  her  diminished  state.  Some 
times,  as  he  sat  between  the  lonely  primitive  old  couple, 
he  wondered  from  what  source  Undine's  voracious  am- 
[317] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

bitions  had  been  drawn :  all  she  cared  for,  and  attached 
importance  to,  was  as  remote  from  her  parents'  concep 
tion  of  life  as  her  impatient  greed  from  their  passive 
stoicism. 

One  hot  afternoon  toward  the  end  of  June  Ralph  sud 
denly  wondered  if  Clare  Van  Degen  were  still  in  town. 
She  had  dined  in  Washington  Square  some  ten  days 
earlier,  and  he  remembered  her  saying  that  she  had 
sent  the  children  down  to  Long  Island,  but  that  she 
herself  meant  to  stay  on  in  town  till  the  heat  grew  un 
bearable.  She  hated  her  big  showy  place  on  Long  Island, 
she  was  tired  of  the  spring  trip  to  London  and  Paris, 
where  one  met  at  every  turn  the  faces  one  had  grown 
sick  of  seeing  all  winter,  and  she  declared  that  in  the 
early  summer  New  York  was  the  only  place  in  which 
one  could  escape  from  New  Yorkers.  .  .  She  put  the 
case  amusingly,  and  it  was  like  her  to  take  up  any  atti 
tude  that  went  against  the  habits  of  her  set;  but  she 
lived  at  the  mercy  of  her  moods,  and  one  could  never 
tell  how  long  any  one  of  them  would  rule  her. 

As  he  sat  in  his  office,  with  the  noise  and  glare  of  the 
endless  afternoon  rising  up  in  hot  waves  from  the  street, 
there  wandered  into  Ralph's  mind  a  vision  of  her  shady 
drawing-room.  All  day  it  hung  before  him  like  the  mi 
rage  of  a  spring  before  a  dusty  traveller :  he  felt  a  posi 
tive  thirst  for  her  presence,  for  the  sound  of  her  voice, 
the  wide  spaces  and  luxurious  silences  surrounding  her. 
[3181 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

It  was  perhaps  because,  on  that  particular  day,  a 
spiral  pain  was  twisting  around  in  the  back  of  his  head, 
and  digging  in  a  little  deeper  with  each  twist,  and  be 
cause  the  figures  on  the  balance  sheet  before  him  were 
hopping  about  like  black  imps  in  an  infernal  forward- 
and-back,  that  the  picture  hung  there  so  persistently. 
It  was  a  long  time  since  he  had  wanted  anything  as 
much  as,  at  that  particular  moment,  he  wanted  to  be 
with  Clare  and  hear  her  voice;  and  as  soon  as  he  had 
ground  out  the  day's  measure  of  work  he  rang  up  the 
Van  Degen  palace  and  learned  that  she  was  still  in 
town. 

The  lowered  awnings  of  her  inner  drawing-room  cast 
a  luminous  shadow  on  old  cabinets  and  consoles,  and 
on  the  pale  flowers  scattered  here  and  there  in  vases 
of  bronze  and  porcelain.  Clare's  taste  was  as  capricious 
as  her  moods,  and  the  rest  of  the  house  was  not  in  har 
mony  with  this  room.  There  was,  in  particular,  another 
drawing-room,  which  she  now  described  as  Peter's 
creation,  but  which  Ralph  knew  to  be  partly  hers:  a 
heavily  decorated  apartment,  where  Popple's  portrait 
of  her  throned  over  a  waste  of  gilt  furniture.  It  was 
characteristic  that  to-day  she  had  had  Ralph  shown  in 
by  another  way;  and  that,  as  she  had  spared  him  the 
polyphonic  drawing-room,  so  she  had  skilfully  adapted 
her  own  appearance  to  her  soberer  background.  She 
sat  near  the  window,  reading,  in  a  clear  cool  dress :  and 
at  his  entrance  she  merely  slipped  a  finger  between 
the  pages  and  looked  up  at  him. 
[319] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Her  way  of  receiving  him  made  him  feel  that  her 
restlessness  and  stridency  were  as  unlike  her  genuine 
self  as  the  gilded  drawing-room,  and  that  this  quiet 
creature  was  the  only  real  Clare,  the  Clare  who  had 
once  been  so  nearly  his,  and  who  seemed  to  want  him 
to  know  that  she  had  never  wholly  been  any  one  else's. 

"Why  didn't  you  let  me  know  you  were  still  in 
town?"  he  asked,  as  he  sat  down  in  the  sofa-corner 
near  her  chair. 

Her  dark  smile  deepened.  "I  hoped  you'd  come  and 
see." 

"One  never  knows,  with  you." 

He  was  looking  about  the  room  with  a  kind  of  con 
fused  pleasure  in  its  pale  shadows  and  spots  of  dark 
rich  colour.  The  old  lacquer  screen  behind  Clare's  head 
looked  like  a  lustreless  black  pool  with  gold  leaves  float 
ing  on  it;  and  another  piece,  a  little  table  at  her  elbow, 
had  the  brown  bloom  and  the  pear-like  curves  of  an 
old  violin. 

"I  like  to  be  here,"  Ralph  said. 

She  did  not  make  the  mistake  of  asking:  "Then 
why  do  you  never  come?"  Instead,  she  turned  away, 
and  drew  an  inner  curtain  across  the  window  to  shut 
out  the  sunlight  which  was  beginning  to  slant  in  under 
the  awning. 

The  mere  fact  of  her  not  answering,  and  the  final 

touch  of  well-being  which  her  gesture  gave,  reminded 

him  of  other  summer  days  they  had  spent  together, 

long  rambling  boy-and-girl  days  in  the  hot  woods  and 

[320] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

sunny  fields,  when  they  had  never  thought  of  talking 
to  each  other  unless  there  was  something  they  partic 
ularly  wanted  to  say.  His  tired  fancy  strayed  off  for  a 
second  to  the  thought  of  what  it  would  have  been  like 
to  come  back,  at  the  end  of  the  day,  to  such  a  sweet 
community  of  silence;  but  his  mind  was  too  crowded 
with  importunate  facts  for  any  lasting  view  of  visionary 
distances.  The  thought  faded,  and  he  merely  felt  how 
restful  it  was  to  have  her  near.  .  . 

"I'm  glad  you  stayed  in  town:  you  must  let  me  come 
again,"  he  said. 

"I  suppose  you  can't  always  get  away,"  she  answered; 
and  she  began  to  listen,  with  grave  intelligent  eyes,  to 
his  description  of  his  tedious  days. 

With  her  eyes  on  him  he  felt  the  exquisite  relief  of 
talking  about  himself  as  he  had  not  dared  to  talk  to 
any  one  since  his  marriage.  He  would  not  for  the  world 
have  confessed  his  discouragement,  his  consciousness  of 
incapacity;  to  Undine  and  in  Washington  Square  any 
hint  of  failure  would  have  been  taken  as  a  criticism  of 
what  his  wife  demanded  of  him.  Only  to  Clare  Van 
Degen  could  he  cry  out  his  present  despondency  and 
his  loathing  of  the  interminable  task  ahead. 

"A  man  doesn't  know  till  he  tries  it  how  killing  un 
congenial  work  is,  and  how  it  destroys  the  power  of 
doing  what  one's  fit  for,  even  if  there's  time  for  both. 
But  there's  Paul  to  be  looked  out  for,  and  I  daren't 
chuck  my  job — I'm  in  mortal  terror  of  its  chucking 
me.  .  ." 

[321] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Little  by  little  he  slipped  into  a  detailed  recital  of 
all  his  lesser  worries,  the  most  recent  of  which  was  his 
experience  with  the  Lipscombs,  who,  after  a  two 
months'  tenancy  of  the  West  End  Avenue  house,  had 
decamped  without  paying  their  rent. 

Clare  laughed  contemptuously.  "Yes — I  heard  he'd 
come  to  grief  and  been  suspended  from  the  Stock  Ex 
change,  and  I  see  in  the  papers  that  his  wife's  retort 
has  been  to  sue  for  a  divorce." 

Ralph  knew  that,  like  all  their  clan,  his  cousin  re 
garded  a  divorce-suit  as  a  vulgar  and  unnecessary  way 
of  taking  the  public  into  one's  confidence.  His  mind 
flashed  back  to  the  family  feast  in  Washington  Square 
in  celebration  of  his  engagement.  He  recalled  his  grand 
father's  chance  allusion  to  Mrs.  Lipscomb,  and  Undine's 
answer,  fluted  out  on  her  highest  note:  "Oh,  I  guess 
she'll  get  a  divorce  pretty  soon.  He's  been  a  disappoint 
ment  to  her." 

Ralph  could  still  hear  the  horrified  murmur  with 
which  his  mother  had  rebuked  his  laugh.  For  he  had 
laughed — had  thought  Undine's  speech  fresh  and  nat 
ural!  Now  he  felt  the  ironic  rebound  of  her  words. 
Heaven  knew  he  had  been  a  disappointment  to  her; 
and  what  was  there  in  her  own  feeling,  or  in  her  inher 
ited  prejudices,  to  prevent  her  seeking  the  same  redress 
as  Mabel  Lipscomb?  He  wondered  if  the  same  thought 
were  in  his  cousin's  mind.  .  . 

They  began  to  talk  of  other  things:  books,  pictures, 
plays;  and  one  by  one  the  closed  doors  opened  and 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

light  was  let  into  dusty  shuttered  places.  Clare's  mind 
was  neither  keen  nor  deep:  Ralph,  in  the  past,  had 
often  smiled  at  her  rash  ardours  and  vague  intensities. 
But  she  had  his  own  range  of  allusions,  and  a  great 
gift  of  momentary  understanding;  and  he  had  so  long 
beaten  his  thoughts  out  against  a  blank  wall  of  incom 
prehension  that  her  sympathy  seemed  full  of  insight. 

She  began  by  a  question  about  his  writing,  but  the 
subject  was  distasteful  to  him,  and  he  turned  the  talk 
to  a  new  book  in  which  he  had  been  interested.  She 
knew  enough  of  it  to  slip  in  the  right  word  here  and 
there;  and  thence  they  wandered  on  to  kindred  topics. 
Under  the  warmth  of  her  attention  his  torpid  ideas 
awoke  again,  and  his  eyes  took  their  fill  of  pleasure  as 
she  leaned  forward,  her  thin  brown  hands  clasped  on 
her  knees  and  her  eager  face  reflecting  all  his  feelings. 

There  was  a  moment  when  the  two  currents  of  sen 
sation  were  merged  in  one,  and  he  began  to  feel  con 
fusedly  that  he  was  young  and  she  was  kind,  and  that 
there  was  nothing  he  would  like  better  than  to  go  on 
sitting  there,  not  much  caring  what  she  said  or  how  he 
answered,  if  only  she  would  let  him  look  at  her  and 
give  him  one  of  her  thin  brown  hands  to  hold.  Then 
the  corkscrew  in  the  back  of  his  head  dug  into  him 
again  with  a  deeper  thrust,  and  she  seemed  suddenly 
to  recede  to  a  great  distance  and  be  divided  from  him  by 
a  fog  of  pain.  The  fog  lifted  after  a  minute,  but  it  left 
him  queerly  remote  from  her,  from  the  cool  room  with 
[323] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

its  scents  and  shadows,  and  from  all  the  objects  which, 
a  moment  before,  had  so  sharply  impinged  upon  his 
senses.  It  was  as  though  he  looked  at  it  all  through  a 
rain-blurred  pane,  against  which  his  hand  would  strike 
if  he  held  it  out  to  her.  .  . 

That  impression  passed  also,  and  he  found  himself 
thinking  how  tired  he  was  and  how  little  anything 
mattered.  He  recalled  the  unfinished  piece  of  work  on 
his  desk,  and  for  a  moment  had  the  odd  illusion  that 
it  was  there  before  him.  .  . 

She  exclaimed:  "But  are  you  going?"  and  her  ex 
clamation  made  him  aware  that  he  had  left  his  seat 
and  was  standing  in  front  of  her.  .  .  He  fancied  there 
was  some  kind  of  appeal  in  her  brown  eyes ;  but  she  was 
so  dim  and  far  off  that  he  couldn't  be  sure  of  what  she 
wanted,  and  the  next  moment  he  found  himself  shaking 
hands  with  her,  and  heard  her  saying  something  kind 
and  cold  about  its  having  been  so  nice  to  see  him.  .  . 

Half  way  up  the  stairs  little  Paul,  shining  and  rosy 
from  supper,  lurked  in  ambush  for  his  evening  game. 
Ralph  was  fond  of  stooping  down  to  let  the  boy  climb 
up  his  outstretched  arms  to  his  shoulders,  but  to-day, 
as  he  did  so,  Paul's  hug  seemed  to  crush  him  in  a  vice, 
and  the  shout  of  welcome  that  accompanied  it  racked 
his  ears  like  an  explosion  of  steam- whistles.  The  queer 
distance  between  himself  and  the  rest  of  the  world  was 
annihilated  again:  everything  stared  and  glared  and 
[324] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

clutched  him.  He  tried  to  turn  away  his  face  from  the 
child's  hot  kisses;  and  as  he  did  so  he  caught  sight  of  a 
mauve  envelope  among  the  hats  and  sticks  on  the  hall 
table. 

Instantly  he  passed  Paul  over  to  his  nurse,  stam 
mered  out  a  word  about  being  tired,  and  sprang  up 
the  long  flights  to  his  study.  The  pain  in  his  head  had 
stopped,  but  his  hands  trembled  as  he  tore  open  the 
envelope.  Within  it  was  a  second  letter  bearing  a  French 
stamp  and  addressed  to  himself.  It  looked  like  a  busi 
ness  communication  and  had  apparently  been  sent  to 
Undine's  hotel  in  Paris  and  forwarded  to  him  by  her 
hand.  "Another  bill!"  he  reflected  grimly,  as  he  threw 
it  aside  and  felt  in  the  outer  envelope  for  her  letter. 
There  was  nothing  there,  and  after  a  first  sharp  pang 
of  disappointment  he  picked  up  the  enclosure  and 
opened  it. 

Inside  was  a  lithographed  circular,  headed  "Confi 
dential"  and  bearing  the  Paris  address  of  a  firm  of 
private  detectives  who  undertook,  in  conditions  of  at 
tested  and  inviolable  discretion,  to  investigate  "deli 
cate"  situations,  look  up  doubtful  antecedents,  and 
furnish  reliable  evidence  of  misconduct — all  on  the 
most  reasonable  terms. 

For  a  long  time  Ralph  sat  and  stared  at  this  docu 
ment;  then  he  began  to  laugh  and  tossed  it  into  the 
scrap-basket.  After  that,  with  a  groan,  he  dropped  his 
head  against  the  edge  of  his  writing  table. 
[3251 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


XXII 

T  "T  THEN  he  woke,  the  first  thing  he  remembered 
V  V  was  the  fact  of  having  cried. 

He  could  not  think  how  he  had  come  to  be  such  a 
fool.  He  hoped  to  heaven  no  one  had  seen  him.  He 
supposed  he  must  have  been  worrying  about  the  un 
finished  piece  of  work  at  the  office:  where  was  it,  by 
the  way,  he  wondered?  Why — where  he  had  left  it  the 
day  before,  of  course !  What  a  ridiculous  thing  to  worry 
about — but  it  seemed  to  follow  him  about  like  a  dog.  .  . 

He  said  to  himself  that  he  must  get  up  presently  and 
go  down  to  the  office.  Presently — when  he  could  open 
his  eyes.  Just  now  there  was  a  dead  weight  on  them; 
he  tried  one  after  another  in  vain.  The  effort  set  him 
weakly  trembling,  and  he  wanted  to  cry  again.  Non 
sense!  He  must  get  out  of  bed. 

He  stretched  his  arms  out,  trying  to  reach  some 
thing  to  pull  himself  up  by;  but  everything  slipped 
away  and  evaded  him.  It  was  like  trying  to  catch  at 
bright  short  waves.  Then  suddenly  his  fingers  clasped 
themselves  about  something  firm  and  warm.  A  hand: 
a  hand  that  gave  back  his  pressure!  The  relief  was  in 
expressible.  He  lay  still  and  let  the  hand  hold  him, 
while  mentally  he  went  through  the  motions  of  getting 
up  and  beginning  to  dress.  So  indistinct  were  the  boun 
daries  between  thought  and  action  that  he  really  felt 
[3261 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

himself  moving  about  the  room,  in  a  queer  disembodied 
way,  as  one  treads  the  air  in  sleep.  Then  he  felt  the  bed 
clothes  over  him  and  the  pillows  under  his  head. 

"I  must  get  up,"  he  said,  and  pulled  at  the  hand. 

It  pressed  him  down  again:  down  into  a  dim  deep 
pool  of  sleep.  He  lay  there  for  a  long  time,  in  a  silent 
blackness  far  below  light  and  sound;  then  he  gradu 
ally  floated  to  the  surface  with  the  buoyancy  of  a  dead 
body.  But  his  body  had  never  been  more  alive.  Jagged 
strokes  of  pain  tore  through  it,  hands  dragged  at  it  with 
nails  that  bit  like  teeth.  They  wound  thongs  about  him, 
bound  him,  tied  weights  to  him,  tried  to  pull  him 
down  with  them;  but  still  he  floated,  floated,  danced 
on  the  fiery  waves  of  pain,  with  barbed  light  pouring 
down  on  him  from  an  arrowy  sky. 

Charmed  intervals  of  rest,  blue  sailings  on  melodious 
seas,  alternated  with  the  anguish.  He  became  a  leaf  on 
the  air,  a  feather  on  a  current,  a  straw  on  the  tide,  the 
spray  of  the  wave  spinning  itself  to  sunshine  as  the 
wave  toppled  over  into  gulfs  of  blue.  .  . 

He  woke  on  a  stony  beach,  his  legs  and  arms  still 
lashed  to  his  sides  and  the  thongs  cutting  into  him;  but 
the  fierce  sky  was  hidden,  and  hidden  by  his  own  lan 
guid  lids.  He  felt  the  ecstasy  of  decreasing  pain,  and 
courage  came  to  him  to  open  his  eyes  and  look  about 
him.  .  . 

The  beach  was  his  own  bed;  the  tempered  light  lay  on 
familiar  things,  and  some  one  was  moving  about  in  a 
[327] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

shadowy  way  between  bed  and  window.  He  was  thirsty, 
and  some  one  gave  him  a  drink.  His  pillow  burned,  and 
some  one  turned  the  cool  side  out.  His  brain  was  clear 
enough  now  for  him  to  understand  that  he  was  ill,  and 
to  want  to  talk  about  it;  but  his  tongue  hung  in  his 
throat  like  a  clapper  in  a  bell.  He  must  wait  till  the 
rope  was  pulled.  .  . 

So  time  and  life  stole  back  on  him,  and  his  thoughts 
laboured  weakly  with  dim  fears.  Slowly  he  cleared  a 
way  through  them,  adjusted  himself  to  his  strange 
state,  and  found  out  that  he  was  in  his  own  room,  in 
his  grandfather's  house,  that  alternating  with  the  white- 
capped  faces  about  him  were  those  of  his  mother  and 
sister,  and  that  in  a  few  days — if  he  took  his  beef -tea 
and  didn't  fret — Paul  would  be  brought  up  from  Long 
Island,  whither,  on  account  of  the  great  heat,  he  had 
been  carried  off  by  Clare  Van  Degen. 

No  one  named  Undine  to  him,  and  he  did  not  speak 
of  her.  But  one  day,  as  he  lay  in  bed  in  the  summer 
twilight,  he  had  a  vision  of  a  moment,  a  long  way  be 
hind  him — at  the  beginning  of  his  illness,  it  must  have 
been — when  he  had  called  out  for  her  in  his  anguish, 
and  some  one  had  said:  "She's  coming:  she'll  be  here 
next  week." 

Could  it  be  that  next  week  was  not  yet  here?  He 

supposed  that  illness  robbed  one  of  all  sense  of  .time, 

and  he  lay  still,  as  if  in  ambush,  watching  his  scattered 

memories  come  out  one  by  one  and  join  themselves 

[328] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

together.  If  he  watched  long  enough  he  was  sure  he 
should  recognize  one  that  fitted  into  his  picture  of  the 
day  when  he  had  asked  for  Undine.  And  at  length  a  face 
came  out  of  the  twilight :  a  freckled  face,  benevolently 
bent  over  him  under  a  starched  cap.  He  had  not  seen 
the  face  for  a  long  time,  but  suddenly  it  took  shape 
and  fitted  itself  into  the  picture.  .  . 

Laura  Fairford  sat  near  by,  a  book  on  her  knee.  At 
the  sound  of  his  voice  she  looked  up. 

"What  was  the  name  of  the  first  nurse?" 

"The  first ?" 

"The  one  that  went  away." 

"Oh — Miss  Hicks,  you  mean?" 

"How  long  is  it  since  she  went?" 

"It  must  be  three  weeks.  She  had  another  case." 

He  thought  this  over  carefully;  then  he  spoke  again. 
"Call  Undine." 

She  made  no  answer,  and  he  repeated  irritably:  "Why 
don't  you  call  her?  I  want  to  speak  to  her." 

Mrs.  Fairford  laid  down  her  book  and  came  to  him. 

"She's  not  here — just  now." 

He  dealt  with  this  also,  laboriously.  "  You  mean  she's 
out — she's  not  in  the  house?" 

"I  mean  she  hasn't  come  yet." 

As  she  spoke  Ralph  felt  a  sudden  strength  and  hard 
ness  in  his  brain  and  body.  Everything  in  him  be 
came  as  clear  as  noon. 

"But  it  was  before  Miss  Hicks  left  that  you  told  me 
[329] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

you'd  sent  for  her,  and  that  she'd  be  here  the  follow 
ing  week.  And  you  say  Miss  Hicks  has  been  gone  three 
weeks." 

This  was  what  he  had  worked  out  in  his  head,  and 
what  he  meant  to  say  to  his  sister;  but  something 
seemed  to  snap  shut  in  his  throat,  and  he  closed  his 
eyes  without  speaking. 

Even  when  Mr.  Spragg  came  to  see  him  he  said 
nothing.  They  talked  about  his  illness,  about  the  hot 
weather,  about  the  rumours  that  Harmon  B.  Driscoll 
was  again  threatened  with  indictment;  and  then  Mr. 
Spragg  pulled  himself  out  of  his  chair  and  said:  "I 
presume  you'll  call  round  at  the  office  before  you  leave 
the  city." 

"Oh,  yes:  as  soon  as  I'm  up,"  Ralph  answered.  They 
understood  each  other. 

Clare  had  urged  him  to  come  down  to  Long  Island 
and  complete  his  convalescence  there,  but  he  preferred 
to  stay  in  Washington  Square  till  he  should  be  strong 
enough  for  the  journey  to  the  Adirondacks,  whither 
Laura  had  already  preceded  him  with  Paul.  He  did  not 
want  to  see  any  one  but  his  mother  and  grandfather 
till  his  legs  could  carry  him  to  Mr.  Spragg's  office. 

It  was  an  oppressive  day  in  mid- August,  with  a  yel 
low  mist  of  heat  in  the  sky,  when  at  last  he  entered 
the  big  office-building.  Swirls  of  dust  lay  on  the  mosaic 
floor,  and  a  stale  smell  of  decayed  fruit  and  salt  air 
and  steaming  asphalt  filled  the  place  like  a  fog.  As  he 
[330] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

shot  up  in  the  elevator  some  one  slapped  him  on  the 
back,  and  turning  he  saw  Elmer  Moffatt  at  his  side, 
smooth  and  rubicund  under  a  new  straw  hat. 

Moffatt  was  loudly  glad  to  see  him.  "I  haven't  laid 
eyes  on  you  for  months.  At  the  old  stand  still?" 

"So  am  I,"  he  added,  as  Ralph  assented.  "Hope  to 
see  you  there  again  some  day.  Don't  forget  it's  my 
turn  this  time:  glad  if  I  can  be  any  use  to  you.  So  long." 
Ralph's  weak  bones  ached  under  his  handshake. 

"How's  Mrs.  Marvell?"  he  turned  back  from  his 
landing  to  call  out;  and  Ralph  answered:  "Thanks; 
she's  very  well." 

Mr.  Spragg  sat  alone  in  his  murky  inner  office,  the 
fly-blown  engraving  of  Daniel  Webster  above  his  head 
and  the  congested  scrap-basket  beneath  his  feet.  He 
looked  fagged  and  sallow,  like  the  day. 

Ralph  sat  down  on  the  other  side  of  the  desk.  For  a 
moment  his  throat  contracted  as  it  had  when  he  had 
tried  to  question  his  sister;  then  he  asked:  "Where's 
Undine?" 

Mr.  Spragg  glanced  at  the  calendar  that  hung  from  a 
hat-peg  on  the  door.  Then  he  released  the  Masonic  em 
blem  from  his  grasp,  drew  out  his  watch  and  consulted 
it  critically. 

"If  the  train's  on  time  I  presume  she's  somewhere 
between  Chicago  and  Omaha  round  about  now." 

Ralph  stared  at  him,  wondering  if  the  heat  had  gone 
to  his  head. 

[331] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"I  don't  understand." 

"The  Twentieth  Century's  generally  considered  the 
best  route  to  Dakota,"  explained  Mr.  Spragg,  who 
pronounced  the  word  rowt. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  Undine's  in  the  United  States?  " 

Mr.  Spragg's  lower  lip  groped  for  the  phantom  tooth 
pick.  "Why,  let  me  see:  hasn't  Dakota  been  a  state  a 
year  or  two  now?" 

"Oh,  God "  Ralph  cried,  pushing  his  chair  back 

violently  and  striding  across  the  narrow  room. 

As  he  turned,  Mr.  Spragg  stood  up  and  advanced  a 
few  steps.  He  had  given  up  the  quest  for  the  tooth-pick, 
and  his  drawn-in  lips  were  no  more  than  a  narrow  de 
pression  in  his  beard.  He  stood  before  Ralph,  absently 
shaking  the  loose  change  in  his  trouser-pockets. 

Ralph  felt  the  same  hardness  and  lucidity  that  had 
come  to  him  when  he  had  heard  his  sister's  answer. 

"She's  gone,  you  mean?  Left  me?  With  another 
man?" 

Mr.  Spragg  drew  himself  up  with  a  kind  of  slouch 
ing  majesty.  "My  daughter  is  not  that  style.  I  under 
stand  Undine  thinks  there  have  been  mistakes  on  both 
sides.  She  considers  the  tie  was  formed  too  hastily.  I 
believe  desertion  is  the  usual  plea  in  such  cases." 

Ralph  stared  about  him,  hardly  listening.  He  did 

not  resent  his  father-in-law's  tone.  In  a  dim  way  he 

guessed  that  Mr.  Spragg  was  suffering  hardly  less  than 

himself.  But  nothing  was  clear  to  him  save  the  mon- 

[332] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

strous  fact  suddenly  upheaved  in  his  path.  His  wife 
had  left  him,  and  the  plan  for  her  evasion  had  been 
made  and  executed  while  he  lay  helpless :  she  had  seized 
the  opportunity  of  his  illness  to  keep  him  in  ignorance 
of  her  design.  The  humour  of  it  suddenly  struck  him 
and  he  laughed. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  Undine's  divorcing 
met" 

"I  presume  that's  her  plan,"  Mr.  Spragg  admitted- 

"For  desertion?"  Ralph  pursued,  still  laughing. 

His  father-in-law  hesitated  a  moment;  then  he  an 
swered:  "You've  always  done  all  you  could  for  my 
daughter.  There  wasn't  any  other  plea  she  could  think 
of.  She  presumed  this  would  be  the  most  agreeable  to 
your  family." 

"It  was  good  of  her  to  think  of  that!" 

Mr.  Spragg's  only  comment  was  a  sigh. 

"Does  she  imagine  I  won't  fight  it?"  Ralph  broke 
out  with  sudden  passion. 

His  father-in-law  looked  at  him  thoughtfully.  "I 
presume  you  realize  it  ain't  easy  to  change  Undine, 
once  she's  set  on  a  thing." 

"  Perhaps  not.  But  if  she  really  means  to  apply  for  a 
divorce  I  can  make  it  a  little  less  easy  for  her  to  get." 

"That's  so,"  Mr.  Spragg  conceded.  He  turned  back 
to  his  revolving  chair,  and  seating  himself  in  it  began 
to  drum  on  the  desk  with  cigar-stained  fingers. 

"And  by  God,  I  will!"  Ralph  thundered.  Anger  was 
[333] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

the  only  emotion  in  him  now.  He  had  been  fooled, 
cheated,  made  a  mock  of;  but  the  score  was  not  set 
tled  yet.  He  turned  back  and  stood  before  Mr.  Spragg. 

"I  suppose  she's  gone  with  Van  Degen?" 

"My  daughter's  gone  alone,  sir.  I  saw  her  off  at  the 
station.  I  understood  she  was  to  join  a  lady  friend." 

At  every  point  Ralph  felt  his  hold  slip  off  the  sur 
face  of  his  father-in-law's  impervious  fatalism. 

"Does  she  suppose  Van  Degen's  going  to  marry 
her?" 

"Undine  didn't  mention  her  future  plans  to  me." 
After  a  moment  Mr.  Spragg  appended:  "If  she  had,  I 
should  have  declined  to  discuss  them  with  her." 

Ralph  looked  at  him  curiously,  perceiving  that  he 
intended  in  this  negative  way  to  imply  his  disapproval 
of  his  daughter's  course. 

"I  shall  fight  it— I  shall  fight  it!"  the  young  man 
cried  again.  "You  may  tell  her  I  shall  fight  it  to  the 
end!" 

Mr.  Spragg  pressed  the  nib  of  his  pen  against  the 
dust-coated  inkstand.  "I  suppose  you  would  have  to 
engage  a  lawyer.  She'll  know  it  that  way,"  he  remarked. 

"She'll  know  it — you  may  count  on  that!" 

Ralph  had  begun  to  laugh  again.  Suddenly  he  heard 
his  own  laugh  and  it  pulled  him  up.  What  was  he  laugh 
ing  about?  What  was  he  talking  about?  The  thing  was 
to  act — to  hold  his  tongue  and  act.  There  was  no  use 
uttering  windy  threats  to  this  broken-spirited  old  man. 
[334] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

A  fury  of  action  burned  in  Ralph,  pouring  light  into 
his  mind  and  strength  into  his  muscles.  He  caught  up 
his  hat  and  turned  to  the  door. 

As  he  opened  it  Mr.  Spragg  rose  again  and  came  for 
ward  with  his  slow  shambling  step.  He  laid  his  hand  on 
Ralph's  arm. 

"I'd  'a'  given  anything — anything  short  of  my  girl 
herself — not  to  have  this  happen  to  you,  Ralph  Mar- 
veil." 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Ralph. 

They  looked  at  each  other  for  a  moment;  then  Mr. 
Spragg  added:  "But  it  has  happened,  you  know.  Bear 
that  in  mind.  Nothing  you  can  do  will  change  it.  Time 
and  again,  I've  found  that  a  good  thing  to  remember." 

XXIII 

IN  the  Adirondacks  Ralph  Marvell  sat  day  after  day 
on  the  balcony  of  his  little  house  above  the  lake, 
staring  at  the  great  white  cloud-reflections  in  the  water 
and  at  the  dark  line  of  trees  that  closed  them  in.  Now 
and  then  he  got  into  the  canoe  and  paddled  himself 
through  a  winding  chain  of  ponds  to  some  lonely  clear 
ing  in  the  forest;  and  there  he  lay  on  his  back  in  the 
pine-needles  and  watched  the  great  clouds  form  and 
dissolve  themselves  above  his  head. 

All  his  past  life  seemed  to  be  symbolized  by  the 
building-up   and   breaking-down   of   those   fluctuating 
[335  ] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

shapes,  which  incalculable  wind-currents  perpetually 
shifted  and  remodelled  or  swept  from  the  zenith  like 
a  pinch  of  dust. 

His  sister  told  him  that  he  looked  well — better  than 
he  had  in  years;  and  there  were  moments  when  his 
listlessness,  his  stony  insensibility  to  the  small  pricks 
and  frictions  of  daily  life,  might  have  passed  for  the 
serenity  of  recovered  health. 

There  was  no  one  with  whom  he  could  speak  of  Un 
dine.  His  family  had  thrown  over  the  whole  subject  a 
pall  of  silence  which  even  Laura  Fairford  shrank  from 
raising.  As  for  his  mother,  Ralph  had  seen  at  once  that 
the  idea  of  talking  over  the  situation  was  positively 
frightening  to  her.  There  was  no  provision  for  such 
emergencies  in  the  moral  order  of  Washington  Square. 
The  affair  was  a  "scandal,"  and  it  was  not  in  the  Dag- 
onet  tradition  to  acknowledge  the  existence  of  scandals. 
Ralph  recalled  a  dim  memory  of  his  childhood,  the  tale 
of  a  misguided  friend  of  his  mother's  who  had  left  her 
husband  for  a  more  congenial  companion,  and  who, 
years  later,  returning  ill  and  friendless  to  New  York, 
had  appealed  for  sympathy  to  Mrs.  Mar  veil.  The  latter 
had  not  refused  to  give  it;  but  she  had  put  on  her  black 
cashmere  and  two  veils  when  she  went  to  see  her  un 
happy  friend,  and  had  never  mentioned  these  errands 
of  mercy  to  her  husband. 

Ralph  suspected  that  the  constraint  shown  by  his 
mother  and  sister  was  partly  due  to  their  having  but 
[336] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

a  dim  and  confused  view  of  what  had  happened.  In 
their  vocabulary  the  word  "divorce"  was  wrapped  in 
such  a  dark  veil  of  innuendo  as  no  ladylike  hand  would 
care  to  lift.  They  had  not  reached  the  point  of  differ 
entiating  divorces,  but  classed  them  indistinctively  as 
disgraceful  incidents,  in  which  the  woman  was  always 
to  blame,  but  the  man,  though  her  innocent  victim, 
was  yet  inevitably  contaminated.  The  time  involved 
in  the  "proceedings"  was  viewed  as  a  penitential  sea 
son  during  which  it  behoved  the  family  of  the  persons 
concerned  to  behave  as  if  they  were  dead;  yet  any  open 
allusion  to  the  reason  for  adopting  such  an  attitude 
would  have  been  regarded  as  the  height  of  indelicacy. 

Mr.  Dagonet's  notion  of  the  case  was  almost  as  re 
mote  from  reality.  All  he  asked  was  that  his  grandson 
should  "thrash"  somebody,  and  he  could  not  be  made 
to  understand  that  the  modern  drama  of  divorce  is 
sometimes  cast  without  a  Lovelace. 

"You  might  as  well  tell  me  there  was  nobody  but 
Adam  in  the  garden  when  Eve  picked  the  apple.  You 
say  your  wife  was  discontented?  No  woman  ever  knows 
she's  discontented  till  some  man  tells  her  so.  My  God! 
I've  seen  smash-ups  before  now;  but  I  never  yet  saw 
a  marriage  dissolved  like  a  business  partnership.  Di 
vorce  without  a  lover?  Why,  it's — it's  as  unnatural  as 
getting  drunk  on  lemonade." 

After  this  first  explosion  Mr.  Dagonet  also  became 
silent;  and  Ralph  perceived  that  what  annoyed  him 
[3371 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

most  was  the  fact  of  the  "scandal's"  not  being  one  in 
any  gentlemanly  sense  of  the  word.  It  was  like  some 
nasty  business  mess,  about  which  Mr.  Dagonet  couldn't 
pretend  to  have  an  opinion,  since  such  things  didn't 
happen  to  men  of  his  kind.  That  such  a  thing  should 
have  happened  to  his  only  grandson  was  probably  the 
bitterest  experience  of  his  pleasantly  uneventful  life; 
and  it  added  a  touch  of  irony  to  Ralph's  unhappiness 
to  know  how  little,  in  the  whole  affair,  he  was  cutting 
the  figure  Mr.  Dagonet  expected  him  to  cut. 

At  first  he  had  chafed  under  the  taciturnity  sur 
rounding  him:  had  passionately  longed  to  cry  out  his 
humiliation,  his  rebellion,  his  despair.  Then  he  began 
to  feel  the  tonic  effect  of  silence;  and  the  next  stage 
was  reached  when  it  became  clear  to  him  that  there 
was  nothing  to  say.  There  were  thoughts  and  thoughts: 
they  bubbled  up  perpetually  from  the  black  springs  of 
his  hidden  misery,  they  stole  on  him  in  the  darkness  of 
night,  they  blotted  out  the  light  of  day;  but  when  it 
came  to  putting  them  into  words  and  applying  them  to 
the  external  facts  of  the  case,  they  seemed  totally  unre 
lated  to  it.  One  more  white  and  sun-touched  glory  had 
gone  from  his  sky ;  but  there  seemed  no  way  of  connect 
ing  that  with  such  practical  issues  as  his  being  called 
on  to  decide  whether  Paul  was  to  be  put  in  knicker 
bockers  or  trousers,  and  whether  he  should  go  back  to 
Washington  Square  for  the  winter  or  hire  a  small  house 
for  himself  and  his  son. 

[338] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

The  latter  question  was  ultimately  decided  by  his 
remaining  under  his  grandfather's  roof.  November 
found  him  back  in  the  office  again,  in  fairly  good  health, 
with  an  outer  skin  of  indifference  slowly  forming  over 
his  lacerated  soul.  There  had  been  a  hard  minute  to 
live  through  when  he  came  back  to  his  old  brown  room 
in  Washington  Square.  The  walls  and  tables  were  cov 
ered  with  photographs  of  Undine:  effigies  of  all  shapes 
and  sizes,  expressing  every  possible  sentiment  dear  to 
the  photographic  tradition.  Ralph  had  gathered  them 
all  up  when  he  had  moved  from  West  End  Avenue 
after  Undine's  departure  for  Europe,  and  they  throned 
over  his  other  possessions  as  her  image  had  throned 
over  his  future  the  night  he  had  sat  in  that  very  room 
and  dreamed  of  soaring  up  with  her  into  the  blue.  .  . 

It  was  impossible  to  go  on  living  with  her  photo 
graphs  about  him;  and  one  evening,  going  up  to  his 
room  after  dinner,  he  began  to  unhang  them  from  the 
walls,  and  to  gather  them  up  from  book-shelves  and 
mantel-piece  and  tables.  Then  he  looked  about  for 
some  place  in  which  to  hide  them.  There  were  drawers 
under  his  book-cases;  but  they  were  full  of  old  discarded 
things,  and  even  if  he  emptied  the  drawers,  the  photo 
graphs,  in  their  heavy  frames,  were  almost  all  too  large 
to  fit  into  them.  He  turned  next  to  the  top  shelf  of  his 
cupboard;  but  here  the  nurse  had  stored  Paul's  old 
toys,  his  sand-pails,  shovels  and  croquet-box.  Every 
corner  was  packed  with  the  vain  impedimenta  of  living, 
[339] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  the  mere  thought  of  clearing  a  space  in  the  chaos 
was  too  great  an  effort. 

He  began  to  replace  the  pictures  one  by  one;  and 
the  last  was  still  in  his  hand  when  he  heard  his  sister's 
voice  outside.  He  hurriedly  put  the  portrait  back  in 
its  usual  place  on  his  writing-table,  and  Mrs.  Fairford, 
who  had  been  dining  in  Washington  Square,  and  had 
come  up  to  bid  him  good  night,  flung  her  arms  about 
him  in  a  quick  embrace  and  went  down  to  her  carriage. 

The  next  afternoon,  when  he  came  home  from  the 
office,  he  did  not  at  first  see  any  change  in  his  room; 
but  when  he  had  lit  his  pipe  and  thrown  himself  into 
his  arm-chair  he  noticed  that  the  photograph  of  his 
wife's  picture  by  Popple  no  longer  faced  him  from  the 
mantel-piece.  He  turned  to  his  writing-table,  but  her 
image  had  vanished  from  there  too;  then  his  eye,  ma 
king  the  circuit  of  the  walls,  perceived  that  they  also 
had  been  stripped.  Not  a  single  photograph  of  Undine 
was  left;  yet  so  adroitly  had  the  work  of  elimination 
been  done,  so  ingeniously  the  remaining  objects  read 
justed,  that  the  change  attracted  no  attention. 

Ralph  was  angry,  sore,  ashamed.  He  felt  as  if  Laura, 
whose  hand  he  instantly  detected,  had  taken  a  cruel 
pleasure  in  her  work,  and  for  an  instant  he  hated  her 
for  it.  Then  a  sense  of  relief  stole  over  him.  He  was 
glad  he  could  look  about  him  without  meeting  Un 
dine's  eyes,  and  he  understood  that  what  had  been 
done  to  his  room  he  must  do  to  his  memory  and  his 
[340] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

imagination:  he  must  so  readjust  his  mind  that,  which 
ever  way  he  turned  his  thoughts,  her  face  should  no 
longer  confront  him.  But  that  was  a  task  that  Laura 
could  not  perform  for  him,  a  task  to  be  accomplished 
only  by  the  hard  continuous  tension  of  his  will. 

With  the  setting  in  of  the  mood  of  silence  all  desire 
to  fight  his  wife's  suit  died  out.  The  idea  of  touching 
publicly  on  anything  that  had  passed  between  himself 
and  Undine  had  become  unthinkable.  Insensibly  he  had 
been  subdued  to  the  point  of  view  about  him,  and  the 
idea  of  calling  on  the  law  to  repair  his  shattered  happi 
ness  struck  him  as  even  more  grotesque  than  it  was  de 
grading.  Nevertheless,  some  contradictory  impulse  of 
his  divided  spirit  made  him  resent,  on  the  part  of  his 
mother  and  sister,  a  too-ready  acceptance  of  his  atti 
tude.  There  were  moments  when  their  tacit  assumption 
that  his  wife  was  banished  and  forgotten  irritated  him 
like  the  hushed  tread  of  sympathizers  about  the  bed  of 
an  invalid  who  will  not  admit  that  he  suffers. 

His  irritation  was  aggravated  by  the  discovery 
that  Mrs.  Mar  veil  and  Laura  had  already  begun  to 
treat  Paul  as  if  he  were  an  orphan.  One  day,  coming 
unnoticed  into  the  nursery,  Ralph  heard  the  boy 
ask  when  his  mother  was  coming  back;  and  Mrs.  Fair- 
ford,  who  was  with  him,  answered:  "She's  not  coming 
back,  dearest;  and  you're  not  to  speak  of  her  to  father." 

Ralph,  when  the  boy  was  out  of  hearing,  rebuked 
his  sister  for  her  answer.  "I  don't  want  you  to  talk  of 
[3411 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

his  mother  as  if  she  were  dead.  I  don't  want  you  to 
forbid  Paul  to  speak  of  her." 

Laura,  though  usually  so  yielding,  defended  herself. 
"What's  the  use  of  encouraging  him  to  speak  of  her 
when  he's  never  to  see  her?  The  sooner  he  forgets  her 
the  better." 

Ralph  pondered.  "Later — if  she  asks  to  see  him — I 
shan't  refuse." 

Mrs.  Fairford  pressed  her  lips  together  to  check  the 
answer:  "She  never  will!" 

Ralph  heard  it,  nevertheless,  and  let  it  pass.  Nothing 
gave  him  so  profound  a  sense  of  estrangement  from 
his  former  life  as  the  conviction  that  his  sister  was 
probably  right.  He  did  not  really  believe  that  Undine 
would  ever  ask  to  see  her  boy;  but  if  she  did  he  was 
determined  not  to  refuse  her  request. 

Time  wore  on,  the  Christmas  holidays  came  and  went, 
and  the  winter  continued  to  grind  out  the  weary  meas 
ure  of  its  days.  Toward  the  end  of  January  Ralph 
received  a  registered  letter,  addressed  to  him  at  his 
office,  and  bearing  in  the  corner  of  the  envelope  the 
names  of  a  firm  of  Sioux  Falls  attorneys.  He  instantly 
divined  that  it  contained  the  legal  notification  of  his 
wife's  application  for  divorce,  and  as  he  wrote  his  name 
in  the  postman's  book  he  smiled  grimly  at  the  thought 
that  the  stroke  of  his  pen  was  doubtless  signing  her 
release.  He  opened  the  letter,  found  it  to  be  what  he 
[342] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

had  expected,  and  locked  it  away  in  his  desk  without 
mentioning  the  matter  to  any  one. 

He  supposed  that  with  the  putting  away  of  this 
document  he  was  thrusting  the  whole  subject  out  of 
sight;  but  not  more  than  a  fortnight  later,  as  he  sat 
in  the  Subway  on  his  way  down-town,  his  eye  was 
caught  by  his  own  name  on  the  first  page  of  the  heavily 
head-lined  paper  which  the  unshaved  occupant  of  the 
next  seat  held  between  grimy  fists.  The  blood  rushed 
to  Ralph's  forehead  as  he  looked  over  the  man's  arm 
and  read:  "Society  Leader  Gets  Decree,"  and  beneath 
it  the  subordinate  clause:  "Says  Husband  Too  Ab 
sorbed  In  Business  To  Make  Home  Happy."  For 
weeks  afterward,  wherever  he  went,  he  felt  that 
blush  upon  his  forehead.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life 
the  coarse  fingering  of  public  curiosity  had  touched  the 
secret  places  of  his  soul,  and  nothing  that  had  gone 
before  seemed  as  humiliating  as  this  trivial  comment 
on  his  tragedy.  The  paragraph  continued  on  its  way 
through  the  press,  and  whenever  he  took  up  a  news 
paper  he  seemed  to  come  upon  it,  slightly  modified, 
variously  developed,  but  always  reverting  with  a  kind 
of  unctuous  irony  to  his  financial  preoccupations  and 
his  wife's  consequent  loneliness.  The  phrase  was  even 
taken  up  by  the  paragraph  writer,  called  forth  excited 
letters  from  similarly  situated  victims,  was  commented 
on  in  humorous  editorials  and  served  as  a  text  for 
pulpit  denunciations  of  the  growing  craze  for  wealth; 
[343] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  finally,  at  his  dentist's,  Ralph  came  across  it  in  a 
Family  Weekly,  as  one  of  the  "Heart  problems"  pro 
pounded  to  subscribers,  with  a  Gramophone,  a  Straight- 
front  Corset  and  a  Vanity-box  among  the  prizes  offered 
for  its  solution. 

XXIV 

"  TF  you'd  only  had  the  sense  to  come  straight  to 
J.   me,  Undine  Spragg!  There  isn't  a  tip  I  couldn't 
have  given  you — not  one!" 

This  speech,  in  which  a  faintly  contemptuous  com 
passion  for  her  friend's  case  was  blent  with  the  frank 
est  pride  in  her  own,  probably  represented  the  nearest 
approach  to  "tact"  that  Mrs.  James  J.  Rolliver  had 
yet  acquired.  Undine  was  impartial  enough  to  note  in 
it  a  distinct  advance  on  the  youthful  methods  of  Indi 
ana  Frusk;  yet  it  required  a  good  deal  of  self-control 
to  take  the  words  to  herself  with  a  smile,  while  they 
seemed  to  be  laying  a  visible  scarlet  welt  across  the  pale 
face  she  kept  valiantly  turned  to  her  friend.  The  fact 
that  she  must  permit  herself  to  be  pitied  by  Indiana 
Frusk  gave  her  the  uttermost  measure  of  the  depth  to 
which  her  fortunes  had  fallen. 

This  abasement  was  inflicted  on  her  in  the  staring 

gold  apartment  of  the  Hotel  Nouveau  Luxe  in  which 

the  Rollivers  had  established  themselves  on  their  recent 

arrival  in  Paris.  The  vast  drawing-room,  adorned  only 

[344] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

by  two  high-shouldered  gilt  baskets  of  orchids  droop 
ing  on  their  wires,  reminded  Undine  of  the  "Looey 
suite"  in  which  the  opening  scenes  of  her  own  history 
had  been  enacted;  and  the  resemblance  and  the  differ 
ence  were  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  the  image  of  her 
past  self  was  not  inaccurately  repeated  in  the  tri 
umphant  presence  of  Indiana  Rolliver. 

"There  isn't  a  tip  I  couldn't  have  given  you — not 
one!"  Mrs.  Rolliver  reproachfully  repeated;  and  all 
Undine's  superiorities  and  discriminations  seemed  to 
shrivel  up  in  the  crude  blaze  of  the  other's  solid 
achievement. 

There  was  little  comfort  in  noting,  for  one's  private 
delectation,  that  Indiana  spoke  of  her  husband  as 
"Mr.  Rolliver,"  that  she  twanged  a  piercing  r,  that 
one  of  her  shoulders  was  still  higher  than  the  other, 
and  that  her  striking  dress  was  totally  unsuited  to  the 
hour,  the  place  and  the  occasion.  She  still  did  and  was 
all  that  Undine  had  so  sedulously  learned  not  to  be 
and  to  do;  but  to  dwell  on  these  obstacles  to  her  suc 
cess  was  but  to  be  more  deeply  impressed  by  the  fact 
that  she  had  nevertheless  succeeded. 

Not  much  more  than  a  year  had  elapsed  since  Un 
dine  Marvell,  sitting  in  the  drawing-room  of  another 
Parisian  hotel,  had  heard  the  immense  orchestral  mur 
mur  of  Paris  rise  through  the  open  windows  like  the 
ascending  movement  of  her  own  hopes.  The  immense 
murmur  still  sounded  on,  deafening  and  implacable  as 
[345] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

some  elemental  force;  and  the  discord  in  her  fate  no 
more  disturbed  it  than  the  motor  wheels  rolling  by 
under  the  windows  were  disturbed  by  the  particles  of 
dust  that  they  ground  to  finer  powder  as  they  passed. 

"I  could  have  told  you  one  thing  right  off,"  Mrs. 
Rolliver  went  on  with  her  ringing  energy.  "And  that 
is,  to  get  your  divorce  first  thing.  A  divorce  is  always 
a  good  thing  to  have:  you  never  can  tell  when  you 
may  want  it.  You  ought  to  have  attended  to  that 
before  you  even  began  with  Peter  Van  Degen." 

Undine  listened,  irresistibly  impressed.  "Did  you?" 
she  asked;  but  Mrs.  Rolliver,  at  this,  grew  suddenly 
veiled  and  sibylline.  She  wound  her  big  bejewelled  hand 
through  her  pearls — there  were  ropes  and  ropes  of  them 
— and  leaned  back,  modestly  sinking  her  lids. 

"I'm  here,  anyhow,"  she  rejoined,  with  "Circum- 
spice!"  in  look  and  tone. 

Undine,  obedient  to  the  challenge,  continued  to  gaze 
at  the  pearls.  They  were  real;  there  was  no  doubt  about 
that.  And  so  was  Indiana's  marriage — if  she  kept  out 
of  certain  states. 

"Don't  you  see,"  Mrs.  Rolliver  continued,  "that 
having  to  leave  him  when  you  did,  and  rush  off  to 
Dakota  for  six  months,  was — was  giving  him  too  much 
time  to  think;  and  giving  it  at  the  wrong  time,  too?" 

"Oh,  I  see.  But  what  could  I  do?  I'm  not  an  im 
moral  woman." 

"Of  course  not,  dearest.  You  were  merely  thoughtless 
[346] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

— that's  what  I  meant  by  saying  you  ought  to  have 
had  your  divorce  ready." 

A  flicker  of  self-esteem  caused  Undine  to  protest. 
"It  wouldn't  have  made  any  difference.  His  wife  would 
never  have  given  him  up." 

"She's  so  crazy  about  him?" 

"No:  she  hates  him  so.  And  she  hates  me  too,  be 
cause  she's  in  love  with  my  husband." 

Indiana  bounced  out  of  her  lounging  attitude  and 
struck  her  hands  together  with  a  rattle  of  rings. 

"In  love  with  your  husband?  What's  the  matter, 
then?  Why  on  earth  didn't  the  four  of  you  fix  it  up 
together?" 

"You  don't  understand."  (It  was  an  undoubted 
relief  to  be  able,  at  last,  to  say  that  to  Indiana!) 
"Clare  Van  Degen  thinks  divorce  wrong — or  rather 
awfully  vulgar." 

"Vulgar?"  Indiana  flamed.  "If  that  isn't  just  too 
much!  A  woman  who's  in  love  with  another  woman's 
husband?  What  does  she  think  refined,  I'd  like  to 
know?  Having  a  lover,  I  suppose — like  the  women  in 
these  nasty  French  plays?  I've  told  Mr.  Rolliver  I 
won't  go  to  the  theatre  with  him  again  in  Paris — it's 
too  utterly  low.  And  the  swell  society's  just  as  bad: 
it's  simply  rotten.  Thank  goodness  I  was  brought  up 
in  a  place  where  there's  some  sense  of  decency  left!" 
She  looked  compassionately  at  Undine.  "It  was  New 
York  that  demoralized  you — and  I  don't  blame  you 
for  it.  Out  at  Apex  you'd  have  acted  different.  You 
[347] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

never  never  would  have  given  way  to  your  feelings 
before  you'd  got  your  divorce." 

A  slow  blush  rose  to  Undine's  forehead. 

"He  seemed  so  unhappy "  she  murmured. 

"Oh,  I  know!"  said  Indiana  in  a  tone  of  cold  com 
petence.  She  gave  Undine  an  impatient  glance.  "What 
was  the  understanding  between  you,  when  you  left 
Europe  last  August  to  go  out  to  Dakota?" 

"Peter  was  to  go  to  Reno  in  the  autumn — so  that  it 
wouldn't  look  too  much  as  if  we  were  acting  together. 
I  was  to  come  to  Chicago  to  see  him  on  his  way  out 
there." 

"And  he  never  came?" 

"No." 

"And  he  stopped  writing?" 

"Oh,  he  never  writes." 

Indiana  heaved  a  deep  sigh  of  intelligence.  "There's 
one  perfectly  clear  rule:  never  let  out  of  your  sight  a 
man  who  doesn't  write." 

"I  know.  That's  why  I  stayed  with  him — those  few 
weeks  last  summer.  .  ." 

Indiana  sat  thinking,  her  fine  shallow  eyes  fixed 
unblinkingly  on  her  friend's  embarrassed  face. 

"I  suppose  there  isn't  anybody  else ?" 

"Anybody ?" 

"Well — now  you've  got  your  divorce:  anybody  else 
it  would  come  in  handy  for?" 

This  was  harder  to  bear  than  anything  that  had  gone 
before:  Undine  could  not  have  borne  it  if  she  had  not 
F3481 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

had  a  purpose.  "Mr.  Van  Degen  owes  it  to  me " 

she  began  with  an  air  of  wounded  dignity. 

"Yes,  yes:  I  know.  But  that's  just  talk.  If  there  is 
anybody  else " 

"I  can't  imagine  what  you  think  of  me,  Indiana!" 

Indiana,  without  appearing  to  resent  this  challenge, 
again  lost  herself  in  meditation. 

"Well,  I'll  tell  him  he's  just  got  to  see  you,"  she 
finally  emerged  from  it  to  say. 

Undine  gave  a  quick  upward  look:  this  was  what 
she  had  been  waiting  for  ever  since  she  had  read,  a 
few  days  earlier,  in  the  columns  of  her  morning  jour 
nal,  that  Mr.  Peter  Van  Degen  and  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
James  J.  Rolliver  had  been  fellow-passengers  on  board 
the  Semantic.  But  she  did  not  betray  her  expectations 
by  as  much  as  the  tremor  of  an  eye-lash.  She  knew  her 
friend  well  enough  to  pour  out  to  her  the  expected 
tribute  of  surprise. 

"Why,  do  you  mean  to  say  you  know  him,  Indiana?" 

"Mercy,  yes!  He's  round  here  all  the  time.  He  crossed 
on  the  steamer  with  us,  and  Mr.  Rolliver's  taken  a 
fancy  to  him,"  Indiana  explained,  in  the  tone  of  the 
absorbed  bride  to  whom  her  husband's  preferences  are 
the  sole  criterion. 

Undine  turned  a  tear-suffused  gaze  on  her.  "Oh, 
Indiana,  if  I  could  only  see  him  again  I  know  it  would 
be  all  right!  He's  awfully,  awfully  fond  of  me;  but  his 

family  have  influenced  him  against  me " 

[349] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"I  know  what  that  is!"  Mrs.  Rolliver  interjected. 

"But  perhaps,"  Undine  continued,  "it  would  be  bet 
ter  if  I  could  meet  him  first  without  his  knowing  before 
hand — without  your  telling  him.  .  .  I  love  him  too  much 
to  reproach  him!"  she  added  nobly. 

Indiana  pondered:  it  was  clear  that,  though  the 
nobility  of  the  sentiment  impressed  her,  she  was  dis 
inclined  to  renounce  the  idea  of  taking  a  more  active 
part  in  her  friend's  rehabilitation.  But  Undine  went 
on:  "Of  course  you've  found  out  by  this  time  that 
he's  just  a  big  spoiled  baby.  Afterward — when  I've 
seen  him — if  you'd  talk  to  him;  or  if  you'd  only  just 
let  him  be  with  you,  and  see  how  perfectly  happy  you 
and  Mr.  Rolliver  are!" 

Indiana  seized  on  this  at  once.  "You  mean  that  what 
he  wants  is  the  influence  of  a  home  like  ours?  Yes,  yes, 
I  understand.  I  tell  you  what  I'll  do:  I'll  just  ask  him 
round  to  dine,  and  let  you  know  the  day,  without  tell 
ing  him  beforehand  that  you're  coming." 

"Oh,  Indiana!"  Undine  held  her  in  a  close  embrace, 
and  then  drew  away  to  say:  "I'm  so  glad  I  found  you. 
You  must  go  round  with  me  everywhere.  There  are 
lots  of  people  here  I  want  you  to  know." 

Mrs.  Rolliver's  expression  changed  from  vague  sym 
pathy  to  concentrated  interest.  "I  suppose  it's  awfully 
gay  here?  Do  you  go  round  a  great  deal  with  the  Ameri 
can  set?" 

Undine  hesitated  for  a  fraction  of  a  moment.  "There 
[350] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

are  a  few  of  them  who  are  rather  jolly.  But  I  particu 
larly  want  you  to  meet  my  friend  the  Marquis  Roviano 
— he's  from  Rome;  and  a  lovely  Austrian  woman, 
Baroness  Adelschein." 

Her  friend's  face  was  brushed  by  a  shade  of  distrust. 
"I  don't  know  as  I  care  much  about  meeting  for 
eigners,"  she  said  indifferently. 

Undine  smiled:  it  was  agreeable  at  last  to  be  able  to 
give  Indiana  a  "point"  as  valuable  as  any  of  hers  on 
divorce. 

"Oh,  some  of  them  are  awfully  attractive;  and 
they'll  make  you  meet  the  Americans." 

Indiana  caught  this  on  the  bound:  one  began  to  see 
why  she  had  got  on  in  spite  of  everything. 

"Of  course  I'd  love  to  know  your  friends,"  she  said, 
kissing  Undine;  who  answered,  giving  back  the  kiss: 
"You  know  there's  nothing  on  earth  I  wouldn't  do  for 
you." 

Indiana  drew  back  to  look  at  her  with  a  comic  gri 
mace  under  which  a  shade  of  anxiety  was  visible.'"  Well, 
that's  a  pretty  large  order.  But  there's  just  one  thing 
you  can  do,  dearest:  please  to  let  Mr.  Rolliver  alone!" 

"Mr.  Rolliver,  my  dear?"  Undine's  laugh  showed 
that  she  took  this  for  unmixed  comedy.  "That's  a  nice 
way  to  remind  me  that  you're  heaps  and  heaps  better- 
looking  than  I  am!" 

Indiana  gave  her  an  acute  glance.  "Millard  Binch 
didn't  think  so — not  even  at  the  very  end." 
[351] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Oh,  poor  Millard!"  The  women's  smiles  mingled 
easily  over  the  common  reminiscence,  and  once  again, 
on  the  threshold,  Undine  enfolded  her  friend. 

In  the  light  of  the  autumn  afternoon  she  paused  a  mo 
ment  at  the  door  of  the  Nouveau  Luxe,  and  looked 
aimlessly  forth  at  the  brave  spectacle  in  which  she 
seemed  no  longer  to  have  a  stake. 

Many  of  her  old  friends  had  already  returned  to 
Paris:  the  Harvey  Shallums,  May  Beringer,  Dicky 
Bowles  and  other  westward-bound  nomads  lingering 
on  for  a  glimpse  of  the  autumn  theatres  and  fashions 
before  hurrying  back  to  inaugurate  the  New  York 
season.  A  year  ago  Undine  would  have  had  no  diffi 
culty  in  introducing  Indiana  Rolliver  to  this  group — 
a  group  above  which  her  own  aspirations  already  beat 
an  impatient  wing.  Now  her  place  in  it  had  become 
too  precarious  for  her  to  force  an  entrance  for  her  pro 
tectress.  Her  New  York  friends  were  at  no  pains  to 
conceal  from  her  that  in  their  opinion  her  divorce  had 
been  a  blunder.  Their  logic  was  that  of  Apex  reversed. 
Since  she  had  not  been  "sure"  of  Van  Degen,  why  in 
the  world,  they  asked,  had  she  thrown  away  a  position 
she  was  sure  of?  Mrs.  Harvey  Shallum,  in  particular, 
had  not  scrupled  to  put  the  question  squarely.  "Chel- 
les  was  awfully  taken — he  would  have  introduced  you 
everywhere.  I  thought  you  were  wild  to  know  smart 
French  people;  I  thought  Harvey  and  I  weren't  good 
[352] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

enough  for  you  any  longer.  And  now  you've  done  your 
best  to  spoil  everything!  Of  course  I  feel  for  you  tre 
mendously — that's  the  reason  why  I'm  talking  so 
frankly.  You  must  be  horribly  depressed.  Come  and 
dine  to-night — or  no,  if  you  don't  mind  I'd  rather  you 
chose  another  evening.  I'd  forgotten  that  I'd  asked 
the  Jim  Driscolls,  and  it  might  be  uncomfortable — 
for  you  .  .  ." 

In  another  world  she  was  still  welcome,  at  first  per 
haps  even  more  so  than  before:  the  world,  namely,  to 
which  she  had  proposed  to  present  Indiana  Rolliver. 
Roviano,  Madame  Adelschein,  and  a  few  of  the  freer 
spirits  of  her  old  St.  Moritz  band,  reappearing  in  Paris 
with  the  close  of  the  watering-place  season,  had  quickly 
discovered  her  and  shown  a  keen  interest  in  her  liber 
ation.  It  appeared  in  some  mysterious  way  to  make 
her  more  available  for  their  purpose,  and  she  found 
that,  in  the  character  of  the  last  American  divorcee, 
she  was  even  regarded  as  eligible  to  the  small  and  in 
timate  inner  circle  of  their  loosely-knit  association.  At 
first  she  could  not  make  out  what  had  entitled  her  to 
this  privilege,  and  increasing  enlightenment  produced 
a  revolt  of  the  Apex  puritanism  which,  despite  some 
odd  accommodations  and  compliances,  still  carried  its 
head  so  high  in  her. 

Undine  had  been  perfectly  sincere  in  telling  Indiana 
Rolliver  that  she  was  not  "an  immoral  woman."  The 
pleasures  for  which  her  sex  took  such  risks  had  never 
[3531 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

attracted  her,  and  she  did  not  even  crave  the  excite 
ment  of  having  it  thought  that  they  did.  She  wanted, 
passionately  and  persistently,  two  things  which  she  be 
lieved  should  subsist  together  in  any  well-ordered  life: 
amusement  and  respectability;  and  despite  her  surface- 
sophistication  her  notion  of  amusement  was  hardly  less 
innocent  than  when  she  had  hung  on  the  plumber's 
fence  with  Indiana  Frusk. 

It  gave  her,  therefore,  no  satisfaction  to  find  herself 
included  among  Madame  Adelschein's  intimates.  It 
embarrassed  her  to  feel  that  she  was  expected  to  be 
"queer"  and  "different,"  to  respond  to  pass-words  and 
talk  in  innuendo,  to  associate  with  the  equivocal  and 
the  subterranean  and  affect  to  despise  the  ingenuous 
daylight  joys  which  really  satisfied  her  soul.  But  the 
business  shrewdness  which  was  never  quite  dormant  in 
her  suggested  that  this  was  not  the  moment  for  such 
scruples.  She  must  make  the  best  of  what  she  could 
get  and  wait  her  chance  of  getting  something  better; 
and  meanwhile  the  most  practical  use  to  which  she 
could  put  her  shady  friends  was  to  flash  their  authentic 
nobility  in  the  dazzled  eyes  of  Mrs.  Rolliver. 

With  this  object  in  view  she  made  haste,  in  a  fash 
ionable  tea-room  of  the  rue  de  Rivoli,  to  group  about 
Indiana  the  most  titled  members  of  the  band;  and  the 
felicity  of  the  occasion  would  have  been  unmarred  had 
she  not  suddenly  caught  sight  of  Raymond  de  Chelles 
sitting  on  the  other  side  of  the  room. 
[354] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

She  had  not  seen  Chelles  since  her  return  to  Paris. 
It  had  seemed  preferable  to  leave  their  meeting  to 
chance,  and  the  present  chance  might  have  served 
as  well  as  another  but  for  the  fact  that  among  his 
companions  were  two  or  three  of  the  most  eminent 
ladies  of  the  proud  quarter  beyond  the  Seine.  It  was 
what  Undine,  in  moments  of  discouragement,  charac 
terized  as  "her  luck"  that  one  of  these  should  be  the 
hated  Miss  Wincher  of  Potash  Springs,  who  had  now  V 
become  the  Marquise  de  Trezac.  Undine  knew  that 
Chelles  and  his  compatriots,  however  scandalized  at 
her  European  companions,  would  be  completely  indif 
ferent  to  Mrs.  Rolliver's  appearance;  but  one  gesture 
of  Madame  de  Trezac's  eye-glass  would  wave  Indiana 
to  her  place  and  thus  brand  the  whole  party  as 
"wrong." 

All  this  passed  through  Undine's  mind  in  the  very 
moment  of  her  noting  the  change  of  expression  with 
which  Chelles  had  signalled  his  recognition.  If  their 
encounter  could  have  occurred  in  happier  conditions  it 
might  have  had  far-reaching  results.  As  it  was,  the 
crowded  state  of  the  tea-room,  and  the  distance  be 
tween  their  tables,  sufficiently  excused  his  restricting 
his  greeting  to  an  eager  bow;  and  Undine  went  home 
heavy-hearted  from  this  first  attempt  to  reconstruct 
her  past. 

Her  spirits  were  not  lightened  by  the  developments 
of  the  next  few  days.  She  kept  herself  well  in  the  fore- 
[355] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

ground  of  Indiana's  life,  and  cultivated  toward  the 
rarely-visible  Rolliver  a  manner  in  which  impersonal 
admiration  for  the  statesman  was  tempered  with  the 
politest  indifference  to  the  man.  Indiana  seemed  to  do 
justice  to  her  efforts  and  to  be  reassured  by  the  result; 
but  still  there  came  no  hint  of  a  reward.  For  a  time 
Undine  restrained  the  question  on  her  lips;  but  one 
afternoon,  when  she  had  inducted  Indiana  into  the 
deepest  mysteries  of  Parisian  complexion-making,  the 
importance  of  the  service  and  the  confidential  mood 
it  engendered  seemed  to  warrant  a  discreet  allusion  to 
their  bargain. 

Indiana  leaned  back  among  her  cushions  with  an 
embarrassed  laugh. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I've  been  meaning  to  tell  you — it's 
off,  I'm  afraid.  The  dinner  is,  I  mean.  You  see,  Mr. 
Van  Degen  has  seen  you  'round  with  me,  and  the  very 

minute  I  asked  him  to  come  and  dine  he  guessed " 

"He  guessed— and  he  wouldn't?" 
"Well,  no.  He  wouldn't.  I  hate  to  tell  you." 
"Oh —      '  Undine  threw  off  a  vague  laugh.  "Since 
you're  intimate  enough  for  him  to  tell  you  that  he  must 
have  told  you  more — told  you  something  to   justify 
his  behaviour.   He  couldn't — even  Peter  Van  Degen 
couldn't — just   simply    have    said   to   you:    'I    won't 
see  her.'" 

Mrs.  Rolliver  hesitated,  visibly  troubled  to  the  point 
of  regretting  her  intervention. 
[356] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"He  did  say  more?"  Undine  insisted.  "He  gave  you 
a  reason?" 

"He  said  you'd  know." 

"Oh,  how  base — how  base!"  Undine  was  trembling 
with  one  of  her  little-girl  rages,  the  storms  of  destruc 
tive  fury  before  which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Spragg  had  cow 
ered  when  she  was  a  charming  golden-curled  cherub. 
But  life  had  administered  some  of  the  discipline  which 
her  parents  had  spared  her,  and  she  pulled  herself  to 
gether  with  a  gasp  of  pain.  "Of  course  he's  been  turned 
against  me.  His  wife  has  the  whole  of  New  York  behind 
her,  and  I've  no  one;  but  I  know  it  would  be  all  right 
if  I  could  only  see  him." 

Her  friend  made  no  answer,  and  Undine  pursued, 
with  an  irrepressible  outbreak  of  her  old  vehemence: 
"Indiana  Rolliver,  if  you  won't  do  it  for  me  I'll  go 
straight  off  to  his  hotel  this  very  minute.  I'll  wait  there 
in  the  hall  till  he  sees  me!" 

Indiana  lifted  a  protesting  hand.  "Don't,  Undine — 
not  that!" 

"Why  not?" 

"Well— I  wouldn't,  that's  all." 

"You  wouldn't?  Why  wouldn't  you?  You  must  have 
a  reason."  Undine  faced  her  with  levelled  brows. 
"Without  a  reason  you  can't  have  changed  so  utterly 
since  our  last  talk.  You  were  positive  enough  then  that 
I  had  a  right  to  make  him  see  me." 

Somewhat  to  her  surprise,  Indiana  made  no  effort 
[357] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

to  elude  the  challenge.  "Yes,  I  did  think  so  then.  But 
I  know  now  that  it  wouldn't  do  you  the  least  bit  of 
good." 

"Have  they  turned  him  so  completely  against  me? 
I  don't  care  if  they  have!  I  know  him — I  can  get  him 
back." 

"That's  the  trouble."  Indiana  shed  on  her  a  gaze  of 
cold  compassion.  "It's  not  that  any  one  has  turned 
him  against  you.  It's  worse  than  that " 

"What  can  be?" 

"You'll  hate  me  if  I  tell  you." 

"Then  you'd  better  make  him  tell  me  himself!" 

"I  can't.  I  tried  to.  The  trouble  is  that  it  was  you 
— something  you  did,  I  mean.  Something  he  found  out 
about  you — 

Undine,  to  restrain  a  spring  of  anger,  had  to  clutch 
both  arms  of  her  chair.  "About  me?  How  fearfully 
false!  Why,  I've  never  even  looked  at  anybody !" 

"It's  nothing  of  that  kind."  Indiana's  mournful  head- 
shake  seemed  to  deplore,  in  Undine,  an  unsuspected 
moral  obtuseness.  "It's  the  way  you  acted  to  your  own 
husband." 

"I — my — to  Ralph?  He  reproaches  me  for  that? 
Peter  Van  Degen  does?" 

"Well,  for  one  particular  thing.  He  says  that  the  very 
day  you  went  off  with  him  last  year  you  got  a  cable 
from  New  York  telling  you  to  come  back  at  once  to 
Mr.  Marvell,  who  was  desperately  ill." 
[358] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"How  on  earth  did  he  know?"  The  cry  escaped  Un 
dine  before  she  could  repress  it. 

"It's  true,  then?"  Indiana  exclaimed.  "Oh,  Un 
dine " 

Undine  sat  speechless  and  motionless,  the  anger 
frozen  to  terror  on  her  lips. 

Mrs.  Rolliver  turned  on  her  the  reproachful  gaze  of 
the  deceived  benefactress.  "I  didn't  believe  it  when 
he  told  me;  I'd  never  have  thought  it  of  you.  Before 
you'd  even  applied  for  your  divorce!" 

Undine  made  no  attempt  to  deny  the  charge  or  to 
defend  herself.  For  a  moment  she  was  lost  in  the  pur 
suit  of  an  unseizable  clue — the  explanation  of  this 
monstrous  last  perversity  of  fate.  Suddenly  she  rose 
to  her  feet  with  a  set  face. 

"The  Marvells  must  have  told  him — the  beasts!" 
It  relieved  her  to  be  able  to  cry  it  out. 

"It  wras  your  husband's  sister — what  did  you  say 
her  name  was?  When  you  didn't  answer  her  cable,  she 
cabled  Mr.  Van  Degen  to  find  out  where  you  were  and 
tell  you  to  come  straight  back." 

Undine  stared.  "He  never  did!" 

"No." 

"Doesn't  that  show  you  the  story's  all  trumped  up?" 

Indiana  shook  her  head.  "He  said  nothing  to  you 
about  it  because  he  was  with  you  when  you  received 
the  first  cable,  and  you  told  him  it  was  from  your  sis 
ter-in-law,  just  worrying  you  as  usual  to  go  home; 
•  [  359  ] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  when  he  asked  if  there  was  anything  else  in  it 
you  said  there  wasn't  another  thing." 

Undine,  intently  following  her,  caught  at  this  with  a 
spring.  "Then  he  knew  it  all  along — he  admits  that? 
And  it  made  no  earthly  difference  to  him  at  the  time?" 
She  turned  almost  victoriously  on  her  friend.  "Did  he 
happen  to  explain  that,  I  wonder?" 

"Yes."  Indiana's  longanimity  grew  almost  solemn. 
"It  came  over  him  gradually,  he  said.  One  day  when 
he  wasn't  feeling  very  well  he  thought  to  himself: 
*  Would  she  act  like  that  to  me  if  I  was  dying?'  And 
after  that  he  never  felt  the  same  to  you."  Indiana 
lowered  her  empurpled  lids.  "Men  have  their  feelings 
too — even  when  they're  carried  away  by  passion." 
After  a  pause  she  added:  "I  don't  know  as  I  can 
blame  him,  Undine.  You  see,  you  were  his  ideal." 

XXV 

UNDINE   MARVELL,   for  the  next  few  months, 
tasted  all  the  accumulated  bitterness  of  failure. 
After  January  the  drifting  hordes  of  her  compatriots 
had  scattered  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  leaving 
Paris  to  resume,  under  its  low  grey  sky,  its  compacter 
winter  personality.  Noting,  from  her  more  and  more 
deserted  corner,  each  least  sign  of  the  social  revival, 
Undine  felt  herself  as  stranded  and  baffled  as  after  the 
ineffectual  summers  of  her  girlhood.  She  was  not  with- 
[360] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

out  possible  alternatives;  but  the  sense  of  what  she 
had  lost  took  the  savour  from  all  that  was  left.  She 
might  have  attached  herself  to  some  migratory  group 
winged  for  Italy  or  Egypt;  but  the  prospect  of  travel 
did  not  in  itself  appeal  to  her,  and  she  was  doubtful  of 
its  social  benefit.  She  lacked  the  adventurous  curiosity 
which  seeks  its  occasion  in  the  unknown;  and  though 
she  could  work  doggedly  for  a  given  object  the  obstacles 
to  be  overcome  had  to  be  as  distinct  as  the  prize. 

Her  one  desire  was  to  get  back  an  equivalent  of  the 
precise  value  she  had  lost  in  ceasing  to  be  Ralph  Mar-  J 
veil's  wife.  Her  new  visiting-card,  bearing  her  Christian 
name  in  place  of  her  husband's,  was  like  the  coin  of  a 
debased  currency  testifying  to  her  diminished  trading 
capacity.  Her  restricted  means,  her  vacant  days,  all 
the  minor  irritations  of  her  life,  were  as  nothing  com 
pared  to  this  sense  of  a  lost  advantage.  Even  in  the 
narrowed  field  of  a  Parisian  winter  she  might  have 
made  herself  a  place  in  some  more  or  less  extra-social 
world;  but  her  experiments  in  this  line  gave  her  no 
pleasure  proportioned  to  the  possible  derogation. 
She  feared  to  be  associated  with  "the  wrong  people," 
and  scented  a  shade  of  disrespect  in  every  amicable 
advance.  The  more  pressing  attentions  of  one  or  two 
men  she  had  formerly  known  filled  her  with  a  glow  of 
outraged  pride,  and  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  felt 
that  even  solitude  might  be  preferable  to  certain  kinds 
of  society. 

[3611 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Since  ill  health  was  the  most  plausible  pretext  for 
seclusion,  it  was  almost  a  relief  to  find  that  she  was 
really  growing  "nervous"  and  sleeping  badly.  The 
doctor  she  summoned  advised  her  trying  a  small  quiet 
place  on  the  Riviera,  not  too  near  the  sea;  and  thither, 
in  the  early  days  of  December,  she  transported  herself 
with  her  maid  and  an  omnibus-load  of  luggage. 

The  place  disconcerted  her  by  being  really  small 
and  quiet,  and  for  a  few  days  she  struggled  against 
the  desire  for  flight.  She  had  never  before  known  a 
world  as  colourless  and  negative  as  that  of  the  large 
white  hotel  where  everybody  went  to  bed  at  nine,  and 
donkey-rides  over  stony  hills  were  the  only  alterna 
tive  to  slow  drives  along  dusty  roads.  Many  of  the 
dwellers  in  this  temple  of  repose  found  even  these  ex 
ercises  too  stimulating,  and  preferred  to  sit  for  hours 
under  the  palms  in  the  garden,  playing  Patience,  em 
broidering,  or  reading  odd  volumes  of  Tauchnitz.  Un 
dine,  driven  by  despair  to  an  inspection  of  the  hotel 
book-shelves,  discovered  that  scarcely  any  work  they 
contained  was  complete;  but  this  did  not  seem  to 
trouble  the  readers,  who  continued  to  feed  their  leisure 
with  mutilated  fiction,  from  which  they  occasionally 
raised  their  eyes  to  glance  mistrustfully  at  the  new 
arrival  sweeping  the  garden  gravel  with  her  frivolous 
draperies.  The  inmates  of  the  hotel  were  of  different 
nationalities,  but  their  racial  differences  were  levelled 
by  the  stamp  of  a  common  mediocrity.  All  differences  of 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

tongue,  of  custom,  of  physiognomy,  disappeared  in  this 
deep  community  of  insignificance,  which  was  like  some 
secret  bond,  with  the  manifold  signs  and  pass-words  of 
its  ignorances  and  its  imperceptions.  It  was  not  the 
heterogeneous  mediocrity  of  the  American  summer 
hotel,  where  the  lack  of  any  standard  is  the  nearest 
approach  to  a  tie,  but  an  organized  codified  dulness, 
in  conscious  possession  of  its  rights,  and  strong  in  the 
voluntary  ignorance  of  any  others. 

It  took  Undine  a  long  time  to  accustom  herself  to 
such  an  atmosphere,  and  meanwhile  she  fretted,  fumed 
and  flaunted,  or  abandoned  herself  to  long  periods  of 
fruitless  brooding.  Sometimes  a  flame  of  anger  shot  up 
in  her,  dismally  illuminating  the  path  she  had  travelled 
and  the  blank  wall  to  which  it  led.  At  other  moments 
past  and  present  were  enveloped  in  a  dull  fog  of  ran 
cour  which  distorted  and  faded  even  the  image  she 
presented  to  her  morning  mirror.  There  were  days 
when  every  young  face  she  saw  left  in  her  a  taste  of 
poison.  But  when  she  compared  herself  with  the  spec 
imens  of  her  sex  who  plied  their  languid  industries 
under  the  palms,  or  looked  away  as  she  passed  them  in 
hall  or  staircase,  her  spirits  rose,  and  she  rang  for  her 
maid  and  dressed  herself  in  her  newest  and  vividest. 
These  were  unprofitable  triumphs,  however.  She  never 
made  one  of  her  attacks  on  the  organized  disapproval 
of  the  community  without  feeling  she  had  lost  ground 
by  it;  and  the  next  day  she  would  lie  in  bed  and  send 
[3631 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

down  capricious  orders  for  food,  which  her  maid  would 
presently  remove  untouched,  with  instructions  to  trans 
mit  her  complaints  to  the  landlord. 

Sometimes  the  events  of  the  past  year,  ceaselessly 
revolving  through  her  brain,  became  no  longer  a  subject 
for  criticism  or  justification  but  simply  a  series  of  pict 
ures  monotonously  unrolled.  Hour  by  hour,  in  such 
moods,  she  re-lived  the  incidents  of  her  flight  with 
Peter  Van  Degen:  the  part  of  her  career  that,  since  it 
had  proved  a  failure,  seemed  least  like  herself  and  most 
difficult  to  justify.  She  had  gone  away  with  him,  and 
had  lived  with  him  for  two  months:  she,  Undine  Mar- 
veil,  to  whom  respectability  was  the  breath  of  life,  to 
whom  such  follies  had  always  been  unintelligible  and 
therefore  inexcusable. — She  had  done  this  incredible 
thing,  and  she  had  done  it  from  a  motive  that  seemed, 
at  the  time,  as  clear,  as  logical,  as  free  from  the  dis 
torting  mists  of  sentimentality,  as  any  of  her  father's 
financial  enterprises.  It  had  been  a  bold  move,  but  it 
had  been  as  carefully  calculated  as  the  happiest  Wall 
Street  "stroke."  She  had  gone  away  with  Peter  be 
cause,  after  the  decisive  scene  in  which  she  had  put 
her  power  to  the  test,  to  yield  to  him  seemed  the  surest 
means  of  victory.  Even  to  her  practical  intelligence  it 
was  clear  that  an  immediate  dash  to  Dakota  might  look 
too  calculated;  and  she  had  preserved  her  self-respect 
by  telling  herself  that  she  was  really  his  wife,  and  in 
no  way  to  blame  if  the  law  delayed  to  ratify  the  bond. 
[3641 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

She  was  still  persuaded  of  the  justness  of  her  reason 
ing;  but  she  now  saw  that  it  had  left  certain  risks 
out  of  account.  Her  life  with  Van  Degen  had  taught 
her  many  things.  The  two  had  wandered  from  place 
to  place,  spending  a  great  deal  of  money,  always  more 
and  more  money;  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  she 
had  been  able  to  buy  everything  she  wanted.  For  a 
while  this  had  kept  her  amused  and  busy;  but  pres 
ently  she  began  to  perceive  that  her  companion's  view 
of  their  relation  was  not  the  same  as  hers.  She  saw  that 
he  had  always  meant  it  to  be  an  una vowed  tie,  screened 
by  Mrs.  Shallum's  companionship  and  Clare's  careless 
tolerance;  and  that  on  those  terms  he  would  have 
been  ready  to  shed  on  their  adventure  the  brightest 
blaze  of  notoriety.  But  since  Undine  had  insisted  on 
being  carried  off  like  a  sentimental  school-girl  he  meant 
to  shroud  the  affair  in  mystery,  and  was  as  zealous  in 
concealing  their  relation  as  she  was  bent  on  proclaim 
ing  it.  In  the  "powerful"  novels  which  Popple  was 
fond  of  lending  her  she  had  met  with  increasing  fre 
quency  the  type  of  heroine  who  scorns  to  love  clan 
destinely,  and  proclaims  the  sanctity  of  passion  and 
the  moral  duty  of  obeying  its  call.  Undine  had  been 
struck  by  these  arguments  as  justifying  and  even  en 
nobling  her  course,  and  had  let  Peter  understand  that 
she  had  been  actuated  by  the  highest  motives  in  openly 
associating  her  life  with  his;  but  he  had  opposed  a 
placid  insensibility  to  these  allusions,  and  had  persisted 
[3651 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

in  treating  her  as  though  their  journey  were  the  kind 
of  escapade  that  a  man  of  the  world  is  bound  to  hide. 
She  had  expected  him  to  take  her  to  all  the  showy 
places  where  couples  like  themselves  are  relieved  from 
a  too  sustained  contemplation  of  nature  by  the  dis 
tractions  of  the  restaurant  and  the  gaming-table;  but 
he  had  carried  her  from  one  obscure  corner  of  Europe 
to  another,  shunning  fashionable  hotels  and  crowded 
watering-places,  and  displaying  an  ingenuity  in  the 
discovery  of  the  unvisited  and  the  out-of-season  that 
gave  their  journey  an  odd  resemblance  to  her  melan 
choly  wedding-tour. 

She  had  never  for  a  moment  ceased  to  remember 
that  the  Dakota  divorce-court  was  the  objective  point 
of  this  later  honeymoon,  and  her  allusions  to  the 
fact  were  as  frequent  as  prudence  permitted.  Peter 
seemed  in  no  way  disturbed  by  them.  He  responded 
with  expressions  of  increasing  tenderness,  or  the  pur 
chase  of  another  piece  of  jewelry;  and  though  Undine 
could  not  remember  his  ever  voluntarily  bringing  up 
the  subject  of  their  marriage  he  did  not  shrink  from 
her  recurring  mention  of  it.  He  seemed  merely  too 
steeped  in  present  well-being  to  think  of  the  future; 
and  she  ascribed  this  to  the  fact  that  his  faculty  of 
enjoyment  could  not  project  itself  beyond  the  moment. 
Her  business  was  to  make  each  of  their  days  so  agree 
able  that  when  the  last  came  he  should  be  conscious 
of  a  void  to  be  bridged  over  as  rapidly  as  possible; 
[366] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  when  she  thought  this  point  had  been  reached  she 
packed  her  trunks  and  started  for  Dakota. 

The  next  picture  to  follow  was  that  of  the  dull 
months  in  the  western  divorce-town,  where,  to  escape 
loneliness  and  avoid  comment,  she  had  cast  in  her  lot 
with  Mabel  Lipscomb,  who  had  lately  arrived  there 
on  the  same  errand. 

Undine,  at  the  outset,  had  been  sorry  for  the  friend 
whose  new  venture  seemed  likely  to  result  so  much 
less  brilliantly  than  her  own;  but  compassion  had  been 
replaced  by  irritation  as  Mabel's  unpruned  vulgarities, 
her  enormous  encroaching  satisfaction  with  herself  and 
her  surroundings,  began  to  pervade  every  corner  of 
their  provisional  household.  Undine,  during  the  first 
months  of  her  exile,  had  been  sustained  by  the  fullest 
confidence  in  her  future.  When  she  had  parted  from 
Van  Degen  she  had  felt  sure  he  meant  to  marry  her, 
and  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Lipscomb  was  fortified  by  no 
similar  hope  made  her  easier  to  bear  with.  Undine  was 
almost  ashamed  that  the  unwooed  Mabel  should  be  the 
witness  of  her  own  felicity,  and  planned  to  send  her  off 
on  a  trip  to  Denver  when  Peter  should  announce  his 
arrival;  but  the  weeks  passed,  and  Peter  did  not  come. 
Mabel,  on  the  whole,  behaved  well  in  this  contingency. 
Undine,  in  her  first  exultation,  had  confided  all  her 
hopes  and  plans  to  her  friend,  but  Mabel  took  no  un 
due  advantage  of  the  confidence.  She  was  even  tactful  in 
her  loud  fond  clumsy  way,  with  a  tact  that  insistently 
[367] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

boomed  and  buzzed  about  its  victim's  head.  But  one 
day  she  mentioned  that  she  had  asked  to  dinner  a 
gentleman  from  Little  Rock  who  had  come  to  Dakota 
with  the  same  object  as  themselves,  and  whose  ac 
quaintance  she  had  made  through  her  lawyer. 

The  gentleman  from  Little  Rock  came  to  dine,  and 
within  a  week  Undine  understood  that  Mabel's  future 
was  assured.  If  Van  Degen  had  been  at  hand  Undine 
would  have  smiled  with  him  at  poor  Mabel's  infatua 
tion  and  her  suitor's  crudeness.  But  Van  Degen  was 
not  there.  He  made  no  sign,  he  sent  no  excuse;  he  sim 
ply  continued  to  absent  himself;  and  it  was  Undine 
who,  in  due  course,  had  to  make  way  for  Mrs.  Lips- 
comb's  caller,  and  sit  upstairs  with  a  novel  while  the 
drawing-room  below  was  given  up  to  the  enacting  of 
an  actual  love-story. 

Even  then,  even  to  the  end,  Undine  had  to  admit 
that  Mabel  had  behaved  "beautifully."  But  it  is  com 
paratively  easy  to  behave  beautifully  when  one  is  get 
ting  what  one  wants,  and  when  some  one  else,  who 
has  not  always  been  altogether  kind,  is  not.  The  net 
result  of  Mrs.  Lipscomb's  magnanimity  was  that  when, 
on  the  day  of  parting,  she  drew  Undine  to  her  bosom 
with  the  hand  on  which  her  new  engagement-ring 
blazed,  Undine  hated  her  as  she  hated  everything  else 
connected  with  her  vain  exile  in  the  wilderness. 


368 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


XXVI 

THE  next  phase  in  the  unrolling  vision  was  the 
episode  of  her  return  to  New  York.  She  had  gone 
to  the  Malibran,  to  her  parents — for  it  was  a  moment 
in  her  career  when  she  clung  passionately  to  the  con 
formities,  and  when  the  fact  of  being  able  to  say:  "I'm 
here  with  my  father  and  mother"  was  worth  paying 
for  even  in  the  discomfort  of  that  grim  abode.  Never 
theless,  it  was  another  thorn  in  her  pride  that  her 
parents  could  not — for  the  meanest  of  material  reasons 
— transfer  themselves  at  her  coming  to  one  of  the  big 
Fifth  Avenue  hotels.  When  she  had  suggested  it  Mr. 
Spragg  had  briefly  replied  that,  owing  to  the  heavy 
expenses  of  her  divorce  suit,  he  couldn't  for  the  moment 
afford  anything  better;  and  this  announcement  cast  a 
deeper  gloom  over  the  future. 

It  was  not  an  occasion  for  being  "nervous,"  however; 
she  had  learned  too  many  hard  facts  in  the  last  few 
months  to  think  of  having  recourse  to  her  youthful 
methods.  And  something  told  her  that  if  she  made  the 
attempt  it  would  be  useless.  Her  father  and  mother 
seemed  much  older,  seemed  tired  and  defeated,  like 
herself. 

Parents  and  daughter  bore  their  common  failure  in  a 
common  silence,  broken  only  by  Mrs.  Spragg's  occa 
sional  tentative  allusions  to  her  grandson.  But  her 
[369] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

anecdotes  of  Paul  left  a  deeper  silence  behind  them. 
Undine  did  not  want  to  talk  of  her  boy.  She  could 
forget  him  when,  as  she  put  it,  things  were  "going  her 
way,"  but  in  moments  of  discouragement  the  thought 
of  him  was  an  added  bitterness,  subtly  different  from 
her  other  bitter  thoughts,  and  harder  to  quiet.  It  had 
not  occurred  to  her  to  try  to  gain  possession  of  the 
child.  She  was  vaguely  aware  that  the  courts  had  given 
her  his  custody;  but  she  had  never  seriously  thought 
of  asserting  this  claim.  Her  parents'  diminished  means 
and  her  own  uncertain  future  made  her  regard  the 
care  of  Paul  as  an  additional  burden,  and  she  quieted 
her  scruples  by  thinking  of  him  as  "better  off"  with 
Ralph's  family,  and  of  herself  as  rather  touchingly 
disinterested  in  putting  his  welfare  before  her  own. 
Poor  Mrs.  Spragg  was  pining  for  him,  but  Undine  re 
jected  her  artless  suggestion  that  Mrs.  Heeny  should 
be  sent  to  "bring  him  round."  "I  wouldn't  ask  them  a 
favour  for  the  world — they're  just  waiting  for  a  chance 
to  be  hateful  to  me,"  she  scornfully  declared;  but  it 
pained  her  that  her  boy  should  be  so  near,  yet  inac 
cessible,  and  for  the  first  time  she  was  visited  by  un 
wonted  questionings  as  to  her  share  in  the  misfortunes 
that  had  befallen  her.  She  had  voluntarily  stepped  out 
of  her  social  frame,  and  the  only  person  on  whom  she 
could  with  any  satisfaction  have  laid  the  blame  was 
the  person  to  whom  her  mind  now  turned  with  a  be 
lated  tenderness.  It  was  thus,  in  fact,  that  she  thought 
[3701 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

of  Ralph.  His  pride,  his  reserve,  all  the  secret  expres 
sions  of  his  devotion,  the  tones  of  his  voice,  his  quiet 
manner,  even  his  disconcerting  irony:  these  seemed, 
in  contrast  to  what  she  had  since  known,  the  qualities 
essential  to  her  happiness.  She  could  console  herself 
only  by  regarding  it  as  part  of  her  sad  lot  that  pov 
erty,  and  the  relentless  animosity  of  his  family,  should 
have  put  an  end  to  so  perfect  a  union:  she  gradually 
began  to  look  on  herself  and  Ralph  as  the  victims  of 
dark  machinations,  and  when  she  mentioned  him  she 
spoke  forgivingly,  and  implied  that  "everything  might 
have  been  different"  if  "people"  had  not  "come  be 
tween"  them. 

She  had  arrived  in  New  York  in  midseason,  and  the 
dread  of  seeing  familiar  faces  kept  her  shut  up  in  her 
room  at  the  Malibran,  reading  novels  and  brooding 
over  possibilities  of  escape.  She  tried  to  avoid  the  daily 
papers,  but  they  formed  the  staple  diet  of  her  parents, 
and  now  and  then  she  could  not  help  taking  one  up 
and  turning  to  the  "Society  Column."  Its  perusal  pro 
duced  the  impression  that  the  season  must  be  the  gay 
est  New  York  had  ever  known.  The  Harmon  B.  Dris- 
colls,  young  Jim  and  his  wife,  the  Thurber  Van  Degens, 
the  Chauncey  Ellings,  and  all  the  other  Fifth  Avenue 
potentates,  seemed  to  have  their  doors  perpetually 
open  to  a  stream  of  feasters  among  whom  the  familiar 
presences  of  Grace  Beringer,  Bertha  Shallum,  Dicky 
Bowles  and  Claud  Walsingham  Popple  came  and  went 
[371] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

with  the  irritating  sameness  of  the  figures  in  a  stage- 
procession. 

Among  them  also  Peter  Van  Degen  presently  ap 
peared.  He  had  been  on  a  tour  around  the  world,  and 
Undine  could  not  look  at  a  newspaper  without  seeing 
some  allusion  to  his  progress.  After  his  return  she  no 
ticed  that  his  name  was  usually  coupled  with  his  wife's : 
he  and  Clare  seemed  to  be  celebrating  his  home-coming 
in  a  series  of  festivities,  and  Undine  guessed  that  he  had 
reasons  for  wishing  to  keep  before  the  world  the  evi 
dences  of  his  conjugal  accord. 

Mrs.  Heeny's  clippings  supplied  her  with  such 
items  as  her  own  reading  missed;  and  one  day  the 
masseuse  appeared  with  a  long  article  from  the  leading 
journal  of  Little  Rock,  describing  the  brilliant  nuptials 
of  Mabel  Lipscomb — now  Mrs.  Homer  Branney — and 
her  departure  for  "the  Coast"  in  the  bridegroom's 
private  car.  This  put  the  last  touch  to  Undine's  irrita 
tion,  and  the  next  morning  she  got  up  earlier  than  usual, 
put  on  her  most  effective  dress,  went  for  a  quick  walk 
around  the  Park,  and  told  her  father  when  she  came  in 
that  she  wanted  him  to  take  her  to  the  opera  that 
evening. 

Mr.  Spragg  stared  and  frowned.  "You  mean  you 
want  me  to  go  round  and  hire  a  box  for  you?" 

"Oh,  no."  Undine  coloured  at  the  infelicitous  allu 
sion:    besides,  she  knew  now  that  the  smart  people 
who  were  "musical"  went  in  stalls. 
[3721 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"I  only  want  two  good  seats.  I  don't  see  why  I 
should  stay  shut  up.  I  want  you  to  go  with  me,"  she 
added. 

Her  father  received  the  latter  part  of  the  request 
without  comment:  he  seemed  to  have  gone  beyond 
surprise.  But  he  appeared  that  evening  at  dinner  in 
a  creased  and  loosely  fitting  dress-suit  which  he  had 
probably  not  put  on  since  the  last  time  he  had  dined 
with  his  son-in-law,  and  he  and  Undine  drove  off  to 
gether,  leaving  Mrs.  Spragg  to  gaze  after  them  with 
the  pale  stare  of  Hecuba. 

Their  stalls  were  in  the  middle  of  the  house,  and 
around  them  swept  the  great  curve  of  boxes  at  which 
Undine  had  so  often  looked  up  in  the  remote  Stentorian 
days.  Then  all  had  been  one  indistinguishable  glitter, 
now  the  scene  was  full  of  familiar  details :  the  house  was 
thronged  with  people  she  knew,  and  every  box  seemed 
to  contain  a  parcel  of  her  past.  At  first  she  had  shrunk 
from  recognition;  but  gradually,  as  she  perceived  that 
no  one  noticed  her,  that  she  was  merely  part  of  the 
invisible  crowd  out  of  range  of  the  exploring  opera 
glasses,  she  felt  a  defiant  desire  to  make  herself  seen. 
When  the  performance  was  over  her  father  wanted  to 
leave  the  house  by  the  door  at  which  they  had  entered, 
but  she  guided  him  toward  the  stockholders'  entrance, 
and  pressed  her  way  among  the  furred  and  jewelled 
ladies  waiting  for  their  motors.  "Oh,  it's  the  wrong 
door — never  mind,  we'll  walk  to  the  corner  and  get  a 
[3731 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

cab,"  she  exclaimed,  speaking  loudly  enough  to  be 
overheard.  Two  or  three  heads  turned,  and  she  met 
Dicky  Bowles's  glance,  and  returned  his  laughing  bow. 
The  woman  talking  to  him  looked  around,  coloured 
slightly,  and  made  a  barely  perceptible  motion  of  her 
head.  Just  beyond  her,  Mrs.  Chauncey  Elling,  plumed 
and  purple,  stared,  parted  her  lips,  and  turned  to  say 
something  important  to  young  Jim  Driscoll,  who 
looked  up  involuntarily  and  then  squared  his  shoulders 
and  gazed  fixedly  at  a  distant  point,  as  people  do  at 
a  funeral.  Behind  them  Undine  caught  sight  of  Clare 
Van  Degen;  she  stood  alone,  and  her  face  was  pale  and 
listless.  "Shall  I  go  up  and  speak  to  her?"  Undine 
wondered.  Some  intuition  told  her  that,  alone  of  all 
the  women  present,  Clare  might  have  greeted  her 
kindly;  but  she  hung  back,  and  Mrs.  Harmon  Driscoll 
surged  by  on  Popple's  arm.  Popple  crimsoned,  coughed, 
and  signalled  despotically  to  Mrs.  Driscoll's  footman. 
Over  his  shoulder  Undine  received  a  bow  from  Charles 
Bowen,  and  behind  Bowen  she  saw  two  or  three  other 
men  she  knew,  and  read  in  their  faces  surprise,  curi 
osity,  and  the  wish  to  show  their  pleasure  at  seeing 
her.  But  she  grasped  her  father's  arm  and  drew  him 
out  among  the  entangled  motors  and  vociferating  po 
licemen. 

Neither  she  nor  Mr.  Spragg  spoke  a  word  on  the 
way  home;  but  when  they  reached  the  Malibran  her 
father  followed  her  up  to  her  room.  She  had  dropped 
[3741 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

her  cloak  and  stood  before  the  wardrobe  mirror  study 
ing  her  reflection  when  he  came  up  behind  her  and  she 
saw  that  he  was  looking  at  it  too. 

"Where  did  that  necklace  come  from?" 

Undine's  neck  grew  pink  under  the  shining  circlet. 
It  was  the  first  time  since  her  return  to  New  York  that 
she  had  put  on  a  low  dress  and  thus  uncovered  the 
string  of  pearls  she  always  wore.  She  made  no  answer, 
and  Mr.  Spragg  continued:  "Did  your  husband  give 
them  to  you?" 

"Ralph  /"  She  could  not  restrain  a  laugh. 

"Who  did,  then?" 

Undine  remained  silent.  She  really  had  not  thought 
about  the  pearls,  except  in  so  far  as  she  consciously 
enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  possessing  them;  and  her 
father,  habitually  so  unobservant,  had  seemed  the  last 
person  likely  to  raise  the  awkward  question  of  their 
origin. 

"Why "  she  began,  without  knowing  what  she 

meant  to  say. 

"I  guess  you  better  send  'em  back  to  the  party  they 
belong  to,"  Mr.  Spragg  continued,  in  a  voice  she  did 
not  know. 

"They  belong  to  me!"  she  flamed  up. 

He  looked  at  her  as  if  she  had  grown  suddenly  small 
and  insignificant.  "You  better  send  'em  back  to  Peter 
Van  Degen  the  first  thing  to-morrow  morning,"  he 
said  as  he  went  out  of  the  room. 
[375] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

As  far  as  Undine  could  remember,  it  was  the  first 
time  in  her  life  that  he  had  ever  ordered  her  to  do  any 
thing;  and  when  the  door  closed  on  him  she  had  the 
distinct  sense  that  the  question  had  closed  with  it, 
and  that  she  would  have  to  obey.  She  took  the  pearls 
off  and  threw  them  from  her  angrily.  The  humiliation 
her  father  had  inflicted  on  her  was  merged  with  the 
humiliation  to  which  she  had  subjected  herself  in  going 
to  the  opera,  and  she  had  never  before  hated  her  life 
as  she  hated  it  then. 

All  night  she  lay  sleepless,  wondering  miserably  what 
to  do;  and  out  of  her  hatred  of  her  life,  and  her  hatred 
of  Peter  Van  Degen,  there  gradually  grew  a  loathing  of 
Van  Degen's  pearls.  How  could  she  have  kept  them, 
how  have  continued  to  wear  them  about  her  neck? 
Only  her  absorption  in  other  cares  could  have  kept  her 
from  feeling  the  humiliation  of  carrying  about  with  her 
/  the  price  of  her  shame.  Her  novel-reading  had  filled 
her  mind  with  the  vocabulary  of  outraged  virtue,  and 
with  pathetic  allusions  to  woman's  frailty,  and  while 
she  pitied  herself  she  thought  her  father  heroic.  She 
was  proud  to  think  that  she  had  such  a  man  to  defend 
her,  and  rejoiced  that  it  was  in  her  power  to  express 
her  scorn  of  Van  Degen  by  sending  back  his  jewels. 

But  her  righteous  ardour  gradually  cooled,  and  she 

was  left  once  more  to  face  the  dreary  problem  of  the 

future.  Her  evening  at  the  opera  had  shown  her  the 

impossibility  of  remaining  in  New  York.  She  had  nei- 

[3761 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

ther  the  skill  nor  the  power  to  fight  the  forces  of  indif 
ference  leagued  against  her :  she  must  get  away  at  once, 
and  try  to  make  a  fresh  start.  But,  as  usual,  the  lack  of 
money  hampered  her.  Mr.  Spragg  could  no  longer 
afford  to  make  her  the  allowance  she  had  intermittently 
received  from  him  during  the  first  years  of  her  mar 
riage,  and  since  she  was  now  without  child  or  house 
hold  she  could  hardly  make  it  a  grievance  that  he  had 
reduced  her  income.  But  what  he  allowed  her,  even 
with  the  addition  of  her  alimony,  was  absurdly  insuffi 
cient.  Not  that  she  looked  far  ahead;  she  had  always 
felt  herself  predestined  to  ease  and  luxury,  and  the 
possibility  of  a  future  adapted  to  her  present  budget 
did  not  occur  to  her.  But  she  desperately  wanted 
enough  money  to  carry  her  without  anxiety  through 
the  coming  year. 

When  her  breakfast  tray  was  brought  in  she  sent  it 
away  untouched  and  continued  to  lie  in  her  darkened 
room.  She  knew  that  when  she  got  up  she  must  send 
back  the  pearls;  but  there  was  no  longer  any  satisfac 
tion  in  the  thought,  and  she  lay  listlessly  wondering 
how  she  could  best  transmit  them  to  Van  Degen. 

As  she  lay  there  she  heard  Mrs.  Heeny's  voice  in 
the  passage.  Hitherto  she  had  avoided  the  masseuse, 
as  she  did  every  one  else  associated  with  her  past. 
Mrs.  Heeny  had  behaved  with  extreme  discretion,  re 
fraining  from  all  direct  allusions  to  Undine's  misad 
venture;  but  her  silence  was  obviously  the  criticism 
[377] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

of  a  superior  mind.  Once  again  Undine  had  disregarded 
her  injunction  to  "go  slow,"  with  results  that  justified 
the  warning.  Mrs.  Heeny's  very  reserve,  however,  now 
marked  her  as  a  safe  adviser;  and  Undine  sprang  up 
and  called  her  in. 

"My  sakes,  Undine!  You  look's  if  you'd  been  set 
ting  up  all  night  with  a  remains!"  the  masseuse  ex 
claimed  in  her  round  rich  tones. 

Undine,  without  answering,  caught  up  the  pearls 
and  thrust  them  into  Mrs.  Heeny's  hands. 

"Good  land  alive!"  The  masseuse  dropped  into  a 
chair  and  let  the  twist  slip  through  her  fat  flexible 
fingers.  "Well,  you  got  a  fortune  right  round  your 
neck  whenever  you  wear  them,  Undine  Spragg." 

Undine  murmured  something  indistinguishable.  "I 
want  you  to  take  them —  "  she  began. 

"Take  'em?  Whereto?" 

"Why,  to —  "  She  was  checked  by  the  wondering 
simplicity  of  Mrs.  Heeny's  stare.  The  masseuse  must 
know  where  the  pearls  had  come  from,  yet  it  had  evi 
dently  not  occurred  to  her  that  Mrs.  Marvell  was  about 
to  ask  her  to  return  them  to  their  donor.  In  the  light 
of  Mrs.  Heeny's  unclouded  gaze  the  whole  episode 
took  on  a  different  aspect,  and  Undine  began  to  be 
vaguely  astonished  at  her  immediate  submission  to 
her  father's  will.  The  pearls  were  hers,  after  all! 

"To  be  re-strung?"  Mrs.  Heeny  placidly  suggested. 
"  Why,  you'd  oughter  to  have  it  done  right  here  before 
[3781 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

your  eyes,  with  pearls  that  are  worth  what  these 
are." 

As  Undine  listened,  a  new  thought  shaped  itself. 
She  could  not  continue  to  wear  the  pearls:  the  idea 
had  become  intolerable.  But  for  the  first  time  she  saw 
what  they  might  be  converted  into,  and  what  they 
might  rescue  her  from;  and  suddenly  she  brought  out: 
"Do  you  suppose  I  could  get  anything  for  them?" 

"Get  anything?  Why,  what " 

"Anything  like  what  they're  worth,  I  mean.  They 
cost  a  lot  of  money:  they  came  from  the  biggest  place 
in  Paris."  Under  Mrs.  Heeny's  simplifying  eye  it  was 
comparatively  easy  to  make  these  explanations.  "I 
want  you  to  try  and  sell  them  for  me — I  want  you  to 
do  the  best  you  can  with  them.  I  can't  do  it  myself 
— but  you  must  swear  you'll  never  tell  a  soul,"  she 
pressed  on  breathlessly. 

"Why,  you  poor  child — it  ain't  the  first  time,"  said 
Mrs.  Heeny,  coiling  the  pearls  in  her  big  palm.  "It's  a 
pity  too:  they're  such  beauties.  But  you'll  get  others," 
she  added,  as  the  necklace  vanished  into  her  bag. 

A  few  days  later  there  appeared  from  the  same 
receptacle  a  bundle  of  banknotes  considerable  enough 
to  quiet  Undine's  last  scruples.  She  no  longer  under 
stood  why  she  had  hesitated.  Why  should  she  have 
thought  it  necessary  to  give  back  the  pearls  to  Van 
Degen?  His  obligation  to  her  represented  far  more 
than  the  relatively  small  sum  she  had  been  able  to 
[379] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

realize  on  the  necklace.  She  hid  the  money  in  her  dress, 
and  when  Mrs.  Heeny  had  gone  on  to  Mrs.  Spragg's 
room  she  drew  the  packet  out,  and  counting  the  bills 
over,  murmured  to  herself:  "Now  I  can  get  away!" 

Her  one  thought  was  to  return  to  Europe;  but  she 
did  not  want  to  go  alone.  The  vision  of  her  solitary  fig 
ure  adrift  in  the  spring  mob  of  trans-Atlantic  pleasure- 
seekers  depressed  and  mortified  her.  She  would  be 
sure  to  run  across  acquaintances,  and  they  would  in 
fer  that  she  was  in  quest  of  a  new  opportunity,  a  fresh 
start,  and  would  suspect  her  of  trying  to  use  them  for  the 
purpose.  The  thought  was  repugnant  to  her  newly 
awakened  pride,  and  she  decided  that  if  she  went  to 
Europe  her  father  and  mother  must  go  with  her.  The 
project  was  a  bold  one,  and  when  she  broached  it  she 
had  to  run  the  whole  gamut  of  Mr.  Spragg's  irony. 
He  wanted  to  know  what  she  expected  to  do  with  him 
when  she  got  him  there;  whether  she  meant  to  intro 
duce  him  to  "all  those  old  Kings,"  how  she  thought  he 
and  her  mother  would  look  in  court  dress,  and  how  she 
supposed  he  was  going  to  get  on  without  his  New  York 
paper.  But  Undine  had  been  aware  of  having  what  he 
himself  would  have  called  "a  pull"  over  her  father 
since,  the  day  after  their  visit  to  the  opera,  he  had  taken 
her  aside  to  ask:  "You  sent  back  those  pearls?"  and 
she  had  answered  coldly:  "Mrs.  Heeny's  taken  them." 

After  a  moment  of  half-bewildered  resistance  her 
parents,  perhaps  secretly  flattered  by  this  first  expres- 
[380] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

sion  of  her  need  for  them,  had  yielded  to  her  entreaty, 
packed  their  trunks,  and  stoically  set  out  for  the  un 
known.  Neither  Mr.  Spragg  nor  his  wife  had  ever 
before  been  out  of  their  country;  and  Undine  had  not 
understood,  till  they  stood  beside  her  tongue-tied  and 
helpless  on  the  dock  at  Cherbourg,  the  task  she  had 
undertaken  in  uprooting  them.  Mr.  Spragg  had  never 
been  physically  active,  but  on  foreign  shores  he  was 
seized  by  a  strange  restlessness,  and  a  helpless  depend 
ence  on  his  daughter.  Mrs.  Spragg's  long  habit  of  apathy 
was  overcome  by  her  dread  of  being  left  alone  when 
her  husband  and  Undine  went  out,  and  she  delayed 
and  impeded  their  expeditions  by  insisting  on  accom 
panying  them;  so  that,  much  as  Undine  disliked  sight 
seeing,  there  seemed  no  alternative  between  "going 
round"  with  her  parents  and  shutting  herself  up  with 
them  in  the  crowded  hotels  to  which  she  successively 
transported  them. 

The  hotels  were  the  only  European  institutions  that 
really  interested  Mr.  Spragg.  He  considered  them 
manifestly  inferior  to  those  at  home;  but  he  was  haunted 
by  a  statistical  curiosity  as  to  their  size,  their  number, 
their  cost  and  their  capacity  for  housing  and  feeding  the 
incalculable  hordes  of  his  countrymen.  He  went  through 
galleries,  churches  and  museums  in  a  stolid  silence  like 
his  daughter's;  but  in  the  hotels  he  never  ceased  to  en 
quire  and  investigate,  questioning  every  one  who  could 
speak  English,  comparing  bills,  collecting  prospectuses 
[381] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  computing  the  cost  of  construction  and  the  probable 
return  on  the  investment.  He  regarded  the  non-exist 
ence  of  the  cold-storage  system  as  one  more  proof  of 
European  inferiority,  and  no  longer  wondered,  in  the 
absence  of  the  room-to-room  telephone,  that  foreigners 
hadn't  yet  mastered  the  first  principles  of  time-saving. 

After  a  few  weeks  it  became  evident  to  both  parents 
and  daughter  that  their  unnatural  association  could 
not  continue  much  longer.  Mrs.  Spragg's  shrinking 
from  everything  new  and  unfamiliar  had  developed 
into  a  kind  of  settled  terror,  and  Mr.  Spragg  had  begun 
to  be  depressed  by  the  incredible  number  of  the  hotels 
and  their  simply  incalculable  housing  capacity. 

"It  ain't  that  they're  any  great  shakes  in  themselves, 
any  one  of  'em;  but  there's  such  a  darned  lot  of  'em: 
they're  as  thick  as  mosquitoes,  every  place  you  go." 
And  he  began  to  reckon  up,  on  slips  of  paper,  on  the 
backs  of  bills  and  the  margins  of  old  newspapers,  the 
number  of  travellers  who  could  be  simultaneously 
lodged,  bathed  and  boarded  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 
"Five  hundred  bedrooms — three  hundred  bath-rooms — 
no;  three  hundred  and  fifty  bath-rooms,  that  one  has: 
that  makes,  supposing  two-thirds  of  'em  double  up — 
do  you  s'pose  as  many  as  that  do,  Undie?  That  porter 
at  Lucerne  told  me  the  Germans  slept  three  in  a  room 
— well,  call  it  eight  hundred  people;  and  three  meals  a 
day  per  head;  no,  four  meals,  with  that  afternoon  tea 
they  take;  and  the  last  place  we  were  at — 'way  up 
[3821 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

on  that  mountain  there — why,  there  were  seventy-five 
hotels  in  that  one  spot  alone,  and  all  jam  full — well,  it 
beats  me  to  know  where  all  the  people  come  from.  .  ." 

He  had  gone  on  in  this  fashion  for  what  seemed  to 
his  daughter  an  endless  length  of  days;  and  then  sud 
denly  he  had  roused  himself  to  say:  "See  here,  Undie, 
I  got  to  go  back  and  make  the  money  to  pay  for  all 
this." 

There  had  been  no  question  on  the  part  of  any  of 
the  three  of  Undine's  returning  with  them;  and  after 
she  had  conveyed  them  to  their  steamer,  and  seen  their 
vaguely  relieved  faces  merged  in  the  handkerchief- 
waving  throng  along  the  taffrail,  she  had  returned 
alone  to  Paris  and  made  her  unsuccessful  attempt  to 
enlist  the  aid  of  Indiana  Rolliver. 

XXVII 

SHE  was  still  brooding  over  this  last  failure  when 
one  afternoon,  as  she  loitered  on  the  hotel 
terrace,  she  was  approached  by  a  young  woman  whom 
she  had  seen  sitting  near  the  wheeled  chair  of  an  old 
lady  wearing  a  crumpled  black  bonnet  under  a  funny 
fringed  parasol  with  a  jointed  handle. 

The  young  woman,  who  was  small,  slight  and  brown, 
was  dressed  with  a  disregard  of  the  fashion  which  con 
trasted  oddly  with  the  mauve  powder  on  her  face  and 
the  traces  of  artificial  colour  in  her  dark  untidy  hair. 
[383] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

She  looked  as  if  she  might  have  several  different  per 
sonalities,  and  as  if  the  one  of  the  moment  had  been 
hanging  up  a  long  time  in  her  wardrobe  and  been  hur 
riedly  taken  down  as  probably  good  enough  for  the 
present  occasion. 

With  her  hands  in  her  jacket  pockets,  and  an  agree 
able  smile  on  her  boyish  face,  she  strolled  up  to  Undine 
and  asked,  in  a  pretty  variety  of  Parisian  English,  if 
she  had  the  pleasure  of  speaking  to  Mrs.  Marvell. 

On  Undine's  assenting,  the  smile  grew  more  alert 
and  the  lady  continued:  "I  think  you  know  my  friend 
Sacha  Adelschein?" 

No  question  could  have  been  less  welcome  to  Un 
dine.  If  there  was  one  point  on  which  she  was  doggedly 
and  puritanically  resolved,  it  was  that  no  extremes  of 
social  adversity  should  ever  again  draw  her  into  the 
group  of  people  among  whom  Madame  Adelschein  too 
conspicuously  figured.  Since  her  unsuccessful  attempt  to 
win  over  Indiana  by  introducing  her  to  that  group, 
Undine  had  been  righteously  resolved  to  remain  aloof 
from  it;  and  she  was  drawing  herself  up  to  her  loftiest 
height  of  disapproval  when  the  stranger,  as  if  uncon 
scious  of  it,  went  on:  "Sacha  speaks  of  you  so  often — 
she  admires  you  so  much. — I  think  you  know  also  my 
cousin  Chelles,"  she  added,  looking  into  Undine's  eyes. 
"I  am  the  Princess  Estradina.  I've  come  here  with 
my  mother  for  the  air." 

The  murmur  of  negation  died  on  Undine's  lips.  She 
[384] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

found  herself  grappling  with  a  new  social  riddle,  and 
such  surprises  were  always  stimulating.  The  name  of  the 
untidy-looking  young  woman  she  had  been  about  to 
repel  was  one  of  the  most  eminent  in  the  impregnable 
quarter  beyond  the  Seine.  No  one  figured  more  largely 
in  the  Parisian  chronicle  than  the  Princess  Estradina, 
and  no  name  more  impressively  headed  the  list  at  every 
marriage,  funeral  and  philanthropic  entertainment  of 
the  Faubourg  Saint  Germain  than  that  of  her  mother, 
the  Duchesse  de  Dordogne,  who  must  be  no  other  than 
the  old  woman  sitting  in  the  Bath-chair  with  the 
crumpled  bonnet  and  the  ridiculous  sunshade. 

But  it  was  not  the  appearance  of  the  two  ladies  that 
surprised  Undine.  She  knew  that  social  gold  does  not 
always  glitter,  and  that  the  lady  she  had  heard  spoken 
of  as  Lili  Estradina  was  notoriously  careless  of  the  con 
ventions;  but  that  she  should  boast  of  her  intimacy 
with  Madame  Adelschein,  and  use  it  as  a  pretext  for 
naming  herself,  overthrew  all  Undine's  hierarchies. 

"Yes — it's  hideously  dull  here,  and  I'm  dying  of  it. 
Do  come  over  and  speak  to  my  mother.  She's  dying  of 
it  too;  but  don't  tell  her  so,  because  she  hasn't  found 
it  out.  There  were  so  many  things  our  mothers  never 
found  out,"  the  Princess  rambled  on,  with  her  half- 
mocking  half -intimate  smile;  and  in  another  moment 
Undine,  thrilled  at  having  Mrs.  Spragg  thus  coupled 
with  a  Duchess,  found  herself  seated  between  mother 
and  daughter,  and  responding  by  a  radiant  blush  to 
[  385  1 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

the  elder  lady's  amiable  opening:  "You  know  my 
nephew  Raymond — he's  your  great  admirer." 

How  had  it  happened,  whither  would  it  lead,  how 
long  could  it  last?  The  questions  raced  through  Un 
dine's  brain  as  she  sat  listening  to  her  new  friends — 
they  seemed  already  too  friendly  to  be  called  acquaint 
ances  ! — replying  to  their  enquiries,  and  trying  to  think 
far  enough  ahead  to  guess  what  they  would  expect  her 
to  say,  and  what  tone  it  would  be  well  to  take.  She  was 
used  to  such  feats  of  mental  agility,  and  it  was  instinc 
tive  with  her  to  become,  for  the  moment,  the  person 
she  thought  her  interlocutors  expected  her  to  be;  but 
she  had  never  had  quite  so  new  a  part  to  play  at  such 
short  notice.  She  took  her  cue,  however,  from  the  fact 
that  the  Princess  Estradina,  in  her  mother's  presence, 
made  no  farther  allusion  to  her  dear  friend  Sacha,  and 
seemed  somehow,  though  she  continued  to  chat  on  in 
the  same  easy  strain,  to  look  differently  and  throw  out 
different  implications.  All  these  shades  of  demeanour 
were  immediately  perceptible  to  Undine,  who  tried  to 
adapt  herself  to  them  by  combining  in  her  manner  a 
mixture  of  Apex  dash  and  New  York  dignity;  and  the 
result  was  so  successful  that  when  she  rose  to  go  the 
Princess,  with  a  hand  on  her  arm,  said  almost  wist 
fully:  "You're  staying  on  too?  Then  do  take  pity  on 
us!  We  might  go  on  some  trips  together;  and  in  the 
evenings  we  could  make  a  bridge." 

A  new  life  began  for  Undine.  The  Princess,  chained 
[3861 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

to  her  mother's  side,  and  frankly  restive  under  her 
filial  duty,  clung  to  her  new  acquaintance  with  a  per 
sistence  too  flattering  to  be  analyzed.  "My  dear,  I  was 
on  the  brink  of  suicide  when  I  saw  your  name  in  the 
visitors'  list,"  she  explained;  and  Undine  felt  like  an 
swering  that  she  had  nearly  reached  the  same  pass 
when  the  Princess's  thin  little  hand  had  been  held  out 
to  her.  For  the  moment  she  was  dizzy  with  the  effect 
of  that  random  gesture.  Here  she  was,  at  the  lowest 
ebb  of  her  fortunes,  miraculously  rehabilitated,  re 
instated,  and  restored  to  the  old  victorious  sense  of 
her  youth  and  her  power!  Her  sole  graces,  her  unaided 
personality,  had  worked  the  miracle;  how  should  she 
not  trust  in  them  hereafter? 

Aside  from  her  feeling  of  concrete  attainment,  Un 
dine  was  deeply  interested  in  her  new  friends.  The 
Princess  and  her  mother,  in  their  different  ways,  were 
different  from  any  one  else  she  had  known.  The  Prin 
cess,  who  might  have  been  of  any  age  between  twenty 
and  forty,  had  a  small  triangular  face  with  caressing 
impudent  eyes,  a  smile  like  a  silent  whistle  and  the 
gait  of  a  baker's  boy  balancing  his  basket.  She  wore 
either  baggy  shabby  clothes  like  a  man's,  or  rich  dra 
peries  that  looked  as  if  they  had  been  rained  on;  and  she 
seemed  equally  at  ease  in  either  style  of  dress,  and 
carelessly  unconscious  of  both.  She  was  extremely 
familiar  and  unblushingly  inquisitive,  but  she  never 
gave  Undine  the  time  to  ask  her  any  questions  or  the 
[387] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

opportunity  to  venture  on  any  freedom  with  her. 
Nevertheless  she  did  not  scruple  to  talk  of  her  senti 
mental  experiences,  and  seemed  surprised,  and  rather 
disappointed,  that  Undine  had  so  few  to  relate  in  re 
turn.  She  playfully  accused  her  beautiful  new  friend 
of  being  cachottiere,  and  at  the  sight  of  Undine's  blush 
cried  out:  "Ah,  you  funny  Americans!  Why  do  you  all 
behave  as  if  love  were  a  secret  infirmity?" 

The  old  Duchess  was  even  more  impressive,  because 
she  fitted  better  into  Undine's  preconceived  picture  of 
the  Faubourg  Saint  Germain,  and  was  more  like  the 
people  with  whom  she  pictured  the  former  Nettie 
Wincher  as  living  in  privileged  intimacy.  The  Duchess 
was,  indeed,  more  amiable  and  accessible  than  Undine's 
conception  of  a  Duchess,  and  displayed  a  curiosity  as 
great  as  her  daughter's,  and  much  more  puerile,  con 
cerning  her  new  friend's  history  and  habits.  But 
through  her  mild  prattle,  and  in  spite  of  her  limited 
perceptions,  Undine  felt  in  her  the  same  clear  impene 
trable  barrier  that  she  ran  against  occasionally  in  the 
Princess;  and  she  was  beginning  to  understand  that 
this  barrier  represented  a  number  of  things  about 
which  she  herself  had  yet  to  learn.  She  would  not  have 
known  this  a  few  years  earlier,  nor  would  she  have 
seen  in  the  Duchess  anything  but  the  ruin  of  an  ugly 
woman,  dressed  in  clothes  that  Mrs.  Spragg  wouldn't 
have  touched.  The  Duchess  certainly  looked  like  a 
ruin;  but  Undine  now  saw  that  she  looked  like  the 
ruin  of  a  castle. 

[388] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

The  Princess,  who  was  unofficially  separated  from 
her  husband,  had  with  her  her  two  little  girls.  She 
seemed  extremely  attached  to  both — though  avowing 
for  the  younger  a  preference  she  frankly  ascribed  to 
the  interesting  accident  of  its  parentage — and  she  could 
not  understand  that  Undine,  as  to  whose  domestic 
difficulties  she  minutely  informed  herself,  should  have 
consented  to  leave  her  child  to  strangers.  "For,  to  one's 
child,  every  one  but  one's  self  is  a  stranger;  and  what 
ever  your  egarements "  she  began,  breaking  off  with 

a  stare  when  Undine  interrupted  her  to  explain  that 
the  courts  had  ascribed  all  the  wrongs  in  the  case  to 

her  husband.  "But  then — but  then "  murmured 

the  Princess,  turning  away  from  the  subject  as  if 
checked  by  too  deep  an  abyss  of  difference. 

The  incident  had  embarrassed  Undine,  and  though 
she  tried  to  justify  herself  by  allusions  to  her  boy's 
dependence  on  his  father's  family,  and  to  the  duty  of 
not  standing  in  his  way,  she  saw  that  she  made  no 
impression.  "Whatever  one's  errors,  one's  child  be 
longs  to  one,"  her  hearer  continued  to  repeat;  and  Un 
dine,  who  was  frequently  scandalized  by  the  Princess's 
conversation,  now  found  herself  in  the  odd  position  of 
having  to  set  a  watch  upon  her  own  in  order  not  to 
scandalize  the  Princess. 

Each  day,  nevertheless,  strengthened  her  hold  on 

her  new  friends.  After  her  first  flush  of  triumph  she 

began  indeed  to  suspect  that  she  had  been  a  slight 

disappointment  to  the  Princess,  had  not  completely 

[389] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

justified  the  hopes  raised  by  the  doubtful  honour  of 
being  one  of  Sacha  Adelschein's  intimates.  Undine 
guessed  that  the  Princess  had  expected  to  find  her 
more  amusing,  "queerer,"  more  startling  in  speech  and 
conduct.  Though  by  instinct  she  was  none  of  these 
things,  she  was  eager  to  go  as  far  as  was  expected; 
but  she  felt  that  her  audacities  were  on  lines  too  normal 
to  be  interesting,  and  that  the  Princess  thought  her 
rather  school-girlish  and  old-fashioned.  Still,  they  had 
in  common  their  youth,  their  boredom,  their  high  spirits 
and  their  hunger  for  amusement;  and  Undine  was 
making  the  most  of  these  ties  when  one  day,  coming 
back  from  a  trip  to  Monte-Carlo  with  the  Princess, 
she  was  brought  up  short  by  the  sight  of  a  lady — evi 
dently  a  new  arrival — who  was  seated  in  an  attitude 
of  respectful  intimacy  beside  the  old  Duchess's  chair. 
Undine,  advancing  unheard  over  the  fine  gravel  of  the 
garden  path,  recognized  at  a  glance  the  Marquise  de 
Trezac's  drooping  nose  and  disdainful  back,  and  at  the 
same  moment  heard  her  say:  "  — And  her  husband? " 

"Her  husband?  But  she's  an  American — she's  di 
vorced,"  the  Duchess  replied,  as  if  she  were  merely 
stating  the  same  fact  in  two  different  ways;  and  Un 
dine  stopped  short  with  a  pang  of  apprehension. 

The    Princess    came   up   behind   her.    "Who's    the 

solemn  person  with  Mamma?  Ah,  that  old  bore  of  a 

Trezac!"  She  dropped  her  long  eye-glass  with  a  laugh. 

"Well,  she'll  be  useful — she'll  stick  to  Mamma  like  a 

[3901 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

leech,  and  we  shall  get  away  oftener.  Come,  let's  go 
and  be  charming  to  her." 

She  approached  Madame  de  Trezac  effusively,  and 
after  an  interchange  of  exclamations  Undine  heard  her 
say:  "You  know  my  friend  Mrs.  Marvell?  No?  How 
odd!  Where  do  you  manage  to  hide  yourself,  chere 
Madame  ?  Undine,  here's  a  compatriot  who  hasn't  the 
pleasure " 

"I'm  such  a  hermit,  dear  Mrs.  Marvell — the  Prin 
cess  shows  me  what  I  miss,"  the  Marquise  de  Trezac 
murmured,  rising  to  give  her  hand  to  Undine,  and 
speaking  in  a  voice  so  different  from  that  of  the  super 
cilious  Miss  Wincher  that  only  her  facial  angle  and  the 
droop  of  her  nose  linked  her  to  the  hated  vision  of 
Potash  Springs. 

Undine  felt  herself  dancing  on  a  flood-tide  of  security. 
For  the  first  time  the  memory  of  Potash  Springs  be 
came  a  thing  to  smile  at,  and  with  the  Princess's  arm 
through  hers  she  shone  back  triumphantly  on  Madame 
de  Trezac,  who  seemed  to  have  grown  suddenly  obse 
quious  and  insignificant,  as  though  the  waving  of  the 
Princess's  wand  had  stripped  her  of  all  her  false  ad 
vantages. 

But  upstairs,  in  her  own  room,  Undine's  courage 
fell.  Madame  de  Trezac  had  been  civil,  effusive  even, 
because  for  the  moment  she  had  been  taken  off  her 
guard  by  finding  Mrs.  Marvell  on  terms  of  intimacy 
with  the  Princess  Estradina  and  her  mother.  But  the 
[3911 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

force  of  facts  would  reassert  itself.  Far  from  continuing 
to  see  Undine  through  her  French  friends'  eyes  she 
would  probably  invite  them  to  view  her  compatriot 
through  the  searching  lens  of  her  own  ampler  informa 
tion.  "The  old  hypocrite — she'll  tell  them  everything," 
Undine  murmured,  wincing  at  the  recollection  of  the 
dentist's  assistant  from  Deposit,  and  staring  miser 
ably  at  her  reflection  in  the  dressing-table  mirror.  Of 
what  use  were  youth  and  grace  and  good  looks,  if  one 
drop  of  poison  distilled  from  the  envy  of  a  narrow- 
minded  woman  was  enough  to  paralyze  them?  Of 
course  Madame  de  Trezac  knew  and  remembered, 
and,  secure  in  her  own  impregnable  position,  would 
never  rest  till  she  had  driven  out  the  intruder. 


XXVIII 

"T"T  THAT  do  you  say  to  Nice  to-morrow,  dearest?" 
T  V  the  Princess  suggested  a  few  evenings  later, 
as  she  followed  Undine  upstairs  after  a  languid  even 
ing  at  bridge  with  the  Duchess  and  Madame  de  Trezac. 
Half-way  down  the  passage  she  stopped  to  open  a 
door  and,  putting  her  finger  to  her  lip,  signed  to  Un 
dine  to  enter.  In  the  taper-lit  dimness  stood  two  small 
white  beds,  each  surmounted  by  a  crucifix  and  a  palm- 
branch,  and  each  containing  a  small  brown  sleeping 
child  with  a  mop  of  hair  and  a  curiously  finished  little 
face.  As  the  Princess  stood  gazing  on  their  innocent 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

slumbers  she  seemed  for  a  moment  like  a  third  little 
girl,  scarcely  bigger  and  browner  than  the  others;  and 
the  smile  with  which  she  watched  them  was  as  clear 
as  theirs. 

"Ah,  si  seulement  je  pouvais  choisir  leurs  amants!" 
she  sighed  as  she  turned  away. 

" — Nice  to-morrow,"  she  repeated,  as  she  and  Un 
dine  walked  on  to  their  rooms  with  linked  arms.  "We 
may  as  well  make  hay  while  the  Trezac  shines.  She 
bores  Mamma  frightfully,  but  Mamma  won't  admit  it 
because  they  belong  to  the  same  ceuvres.  Shall  it  be  the 
eleven  train,  dear?  We  can  lunch  at  the  Royal  and  look 
in  the  shops — we  may  meet  somebody  amusing.  Any 
how,  it's  better  than  staying  here!" 

Undine  was  sure  the  trip  to  Nice  would  be  delight 
ful.  Their  previous  expeditions  had  shown  her  the 
Princess's  faculty  for  organizing  such  adventures.  At 
Monte-Carlo,  a  few  days  before,  they  had  run  across 
two  or  three  amusing  but  unassorted  people,  and  the 
Princess,  having  fused  them  in  a  jolly  lunch,  had  fol 
lowed  it  up  by  a  bout  at  baccarat,  and,  finally  hunting 
down  an  eminent  composer  who  had  just  arrived  to 
rehearse  a  new  production,  had  insisted  on  his  asking 
the  party  to  tea,  and  treating  them  to  fragments  of 
his  opera. 

A  few  days  earlier,  Undine's  hope  of  renewing  such 
pleasures  would  have  been  clouded  by  the  dread  of 
leaving  Madame  de  Trezac  alone  with  the  Duchess. 
[393] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

But  she  had  no  longer  any  fear  of  Madame  de  Trezac. 
She  had  discovered  that  her  old  rival  of  Potash  Springs 
was  in  actual  dread  of  her  disfavour,  and  nervously 
anxious  to  conciliate  her,  and  the  discovery  gave  her 
such  a  sense  of  the  heights  she  had  scaled,  and  the 
security  of  her  footing,  that  all  her  troubled  past  began 
to  seem  like  the  result  of  some  providential  "design," 
and  vague  impulses  of  piety  stirred  in  her  as  she 
and  the  Princess  whirled  toward  Nice  through  the 
blue  and  gold  glitter  of  the  morning. 

They  wandered  about  the  lively  streets,  they  gazed 
into  the  beguiling  shops,  the  Princess  tried  on  hats 
and  Undine  bought  them,  and  they  lunched  at  the 
Royal  on  all  sorts  of  succulent  dishes  prepared  under 
the  head-waiter's  special  supervision.  But  as  they  were 
savouring  their  "double"  coffee  and  liqueurs,  and 
Undine  was  wondering  what  her  companion  would  de 
vise  for  the  afternoon,  the  Princess  clapped  her  hands 
together  and  cried  out:  "Dearest,  I'd  forgotten!  I 
must  desert  you." 

She  explained  that  she'd  promised  the  Duchess  to 
look  up  a  friend  who  was  ill — a  poor  wretch  who'd 
been  sent  to  Cimiez  for  her  lungs — and  that  she  must 
rush  off  at  once,  and  would  be  back  as  soon  as  possi 
ble — well,  if  not  in  an  hour,  then  in  two  at  latest.  She 
was  full  of  compunction,  but  she  knew  Undine  would 
forgive  her,  and  find  something  amusing  to  fill  up  the 
time:  she  advised  her  to  go  back  and  buy  the  black 
[3941 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

hat  with  the  osprey,  and  try  on  the  crepe  de  Chine 
they'd  thought  so  smart:  for  any  one  as  good-looking 
as  herself  the  woman  would  probably  alter  it  for  noth 
ing;  and  they  could  meet  again  at  the  Palace  Tea- 
Rooms  at  four. 

She  whirled  away  in  a  cloud  of  explanations,  and 
Undine,  left  alone,  sat  down  on  the  Promenade  des 
Anglais.  She  did  not  believe  a  word  the  Princess  had 
said.  She  had  seen  in  a  flash  why  she  was  being  left, 
and  why  the  plan  had  not  been  divulged  to  her  before 
hand;  and  she  quivered  with  resentment  and  humilia 
tion.  "That's  what  she's  wanted  me  for  .  .  .  that's  why 
she  made  up  to  me.  She's  trying  it  to-day,  and  after 
this  it'll  happen  regularly  .  .  .  she'll  drag  me  over  here 
every  day  or  two  ...  at  least  she  thinks  she  will!" 

A  sincere  disgust  was  Undine's  uppermost  sensation. 
She  was  as  much  ashamed  as  Mrs.  Spragg  might  have 
been  at  finding  herself  used  to  screen  a  clandestine  ad 
venture. 

'Til  let  her  see.  .  .  I'll  make  her  understand,"  she 
repeated  angrily;  and  for  a  moment  she  was  half -dis 
posed  to  drive  to  the  station  and  take  the  first  train 
back.  But  the  sense  of  her  precarious  situation  with 
held  her;  and  presently,  with  bitterness  in  her  heart, 
she  got  up  and  began  to  stroll  toward  the  shops. 

To  show  that  she  was  not  a  dupe,  she  arrived  at  the 
designated  meeting-place  nearly  an  hour  later  than  the 
time  appointed;  but  when  she  entered  the  Tea-Rooms 
[395] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

the  Princess  was  nowhere  to  be  seen.  The  rooms  were 
crowded,  and  Undine  was  guided  toward  a  small  inner 
apartment  where  isolated  couples  were  absorbing  re 
freshments  in  an  atmosphere  of  intimacy  that  made  it 
seem  incongruous  to  be  alone.  She  glanced  about  for  a 
face  she  knew,  but  none  was  visible,  and  she  was  just 
giving  up  the  search  when  she  beheld  Elmer  Moffatt 
shouldering  his  way  through  the  crowd. 

The  sight  was  so  surprising  that  she  sat  gazing  with 
unconscious  fixity  at  the  round  black  head  and  glossy 
reddish  face  which  kept  appearing  and  disappearing 
through  the  intervening  jungle  of  aigrettes.  It  was 
long  since  she  had  either  heard  of  Moffatt  or  thought 
about  him,  and  now,  in  her  loneliness  and  exasperation, 
she  took  comfort  in  the  sight  of  his  confident  capable 
face,  and  felt  a  longing  to  hear  his  voice  and  unbosom 
her  woes  to  him.  She  had  half  risen  to  attract  his  atten 
tion  when  she  saw  him  turn  back  and  make  way  for 
a  companion,  who  was  cautiously  steering  her  huge 
feathered  hat  between  the  tea-tables.  The  woman  was 
of  the  vulgarest  type;  everything  about  her  was  cheap 
and  gaudy.  But  Moffatt  was  obviously  elated :  he  stood 
aside  with  a  flourish  to  usher  her  in,  and  as  he  followed 
he  shot  out  a  pink  shirt-cuff  with  jewelled  links,  and 
gave  his  moustache  a  gallant  twist.  Undine  felt  an  un 
reasoning  irritation:  she  was  vexed  with  him  both  for 
not  being  alone  and  for  being  so  vulgarly  accompanied. 
As  the  couple  seated  themselves  she  caught  Moffatt 's 
[396] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

glance  and  saw  him  redden  to  the  edge  of  his  white 
forehead;  but  he  elaborately  avoided  her  eye — he  evi 
dently  wanted  her  to  see  him  do  it — and  proceeded  to 
minister  to  his  companion's  wants  with  an  air  of  ex 
perienced  gallantry. 

The  incident,  trifling  as  it  was,  filled  up  the  measure 
of  Undine's  bitterness.  She  thought  Moffatt  pitiably 
ridiculous,  and  she  hated  him  for  showing  himself  in 
such  a  light  at  that  particular  moment.  Her  mind 
turned  back  to  her  own  grievance,  and  she  was  just 
saying  to  herself  that  nothing  on  earth  should  prevent 
her  letting  the  Princess  know  what  she  thought  of 
her,  when  the  lady  in  question  at  last  appeared.  She 
came  hurriedly  forward  and  behind  her  Undine  per 
ceived  the  figure  of  a  slight  quietly  dressed  man,  as  to 
whom  her  immediate  impression  was  that  he  made 
every  one  else  in  the  room  look  as  common  as  Moffatt. 
An  instant  later  the  colour  had  flown  to  her  face  and 
her  hand  was  in  Raymond  de  Chelles',  while  the  Prin 
cess,  murmuring:  "Cimiez's  such  a  long  way  off;  but 
you  will  forgive  me?"  looked  into  her  eyes  with  a  smile 
that  added:  "See  how  I  pay  for  what  I  get!" 

Her  first  glance  showed  Undine  how  glad  Raymond 
de  Chelles  was  to  see  her.  Since  their  last  meeting  his 
admiration  for  her  seemed  not  only  to  have  increased 
but  to  have  acquired  a  different  character.  Undine,  at 
an  earlier  stage  in  her  career,  might  not  have  known 
[3971 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

exactly  what  the  difference  signified;  but  it  was  as  clear 
to  her  now  as  if  the  Princess  had  said— what  her  beaming 
eyes  seemed,  in  fact,  to  convey — "  I'm  only  too  glad  to 
do  my  cousin  the  same  kind  of  turn  you're  doing  me." 

But  Undine's  increased  experience,  if  it  had  made 
her  more  vigilant,  had  also  given  her  a  clearer  meas 
ure  of  her  power.  She  saw  at  once  that  Chelles,  in 
seeking  to  meet  her  again,  was  not  in  quest  of  a  mere 
passing  adventure.  He  was  evidently  deeply  drawn  to 
her,  and  her  present  situation,  if  it  made  it  natural  to 
regard  her  as  more  accessible,  had  not  altered  the  nature 
of  his  feeling.  She  saw  and  weighed  all  this  in  the  first 
five  minutes  during  which,  over  tea  and  muffins,  the 
Princess  descanted  on  her  luck  in  happening  to  run 
across  her  cousin,  and  Chelles,  his  enchanted  eyes 
on  Undine,  expressed  his  sense  of  his  good  fortune.  He 
was  staying,  it  appeared,  with  friends  at  Beaulieu,  and 
had  run  over  to  Nice  that  afternoon  by  the  merest 
chance :  he  added  that,  having  just  learned  of  his  aunt's 
presence  in  the  neighbourhood,  he  had  already  planned 
to  present  his  homage  to  her. 

"Oh,  don't  come  to  us — we're  too  dull!"  the  Princess 
exclaimed.  "Let  us  run  over  occasionally  and  call  on 
you:  we're  dying  for  a  pretext,  aren't  we?"  she  added, 
smiling  at  Undine. 

The  latter  smiled  back  vaguely,  and  looked  across 
the  room.  Moffatt,  looking  flushed  and  foolish,  was  just 
pushing  back  his  chair.  To  carry  off  his  embarrassment 
[398] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

he  put  on  an  additional  touch  of  importance;  and  as 
he  swaggered  out  behind  his  companion,  Undine  said 
to  herself,  with  a  shiver:  "If  he'd  been  alone  they  would 
have  found  me  taking  tea  with  him." 

Undine,  during  the  ensuing  weeks,  returned  several 
times  to  Nice  with  the  Princess;  but,  to  the  latter 's 
surprise,  she  absolutely  refused  to  have  Raymond  de 
Chelles  included  in  their  luncheon-parties,  or  even  ap 
prised  in  advance  of  their  expeditions. 

The  Princess,  always  impatient  of  unnecessary  dis 
simulation,  had  not  attempted  to  keep  up  the  feint 
of  the  interesting  invalid  at  Cimiez.  She  confessed  to 
Undine  that  she  was  drawn  to  Nice  by  the  presence 
there  of  the  person  without  whom,  for  the  moment,  she 
found  life  intolerable,  and  whom  she  could  not  well 
receive  under  the  same  roof  with  her  little  girls  and  her 
mother.  She  appealed  to  Undine's  sisterly  heart  to  feel 
for  her  in  her  difficulty,  and  implied  that — as  her  con 
duct  had  already  proved — she  would  always  be  ready 
to  render  her  friend  a  like  service. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Undine  checked  her  by  a 
decided  word.  "I  understand  your  position,  and  I'm 
very  sorry  for  you,  of  course,"  she  began  (the  Princess 
stared  at  the  "sorry").  "Your  secret's  perfectly  safe 
with  me,  and  I'll  do  anything  I  can  for  you  .  .  .  but  if 
I  go  to  Nice  with  you  again  you  must  promise  not  to 
ask  your  cousin  to  meet  us." 
F3991 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  Princess's  face  expressed  the  most  genuine 
astonishment.  "Oh,  my  dear,  do  forgive  me  if  I've 
been  stupid!  He  admires  you  so  tremendously;  and  I 
thought " 

"You'll  do  as  I  ask,  please — won't  you?"  Undine 
went  on,  ignoring  the  interruption  and  looking  straight 
at  her  under  level  brows;  and  the  Princess,  with  a 
shrug,  merely  murmured:  "What  a  pity!  I  fancied  you 
liked  him." 


XXIX 

THE  early  spring  found  Undine  once  more  in 
Paris. 

She  had  every  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  the  result 
of  the  course  she  had  pursued  since  she  had  pronounced 
her  ultimatum  on  the  subject  of  Raymond  de  Chelles. 
She  had  continued  to  remain  on  the  best  of  terms  with 
the  Princess,  to  rise  in  the  estimation  of  the  old  Duchess, 
and  to  measure  the  rapidity  of  her  ascent  in  the  up 
ward  gaze  of  Madame  de  Trezac;  and  she  had  given 
Chelles  to  understand  that,  if  he  wished  to  renew  their 
acquaintance,  he  must  do  so  in  the  shelter  of  his  ven 
erable  aunt's  protection. 

To  the  Princess  she  was  careful  to  make  her  attitude 
equally  clear.  "I  like  your  cousin  very  much — he's  de 
lightful,  and  if  I'm  in  Paris  this  spring  I  hope  I  shall 
see  a  great  deal  of  him.  But  I  know  how  easy  it  is  for 
f  4001 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

a  woman  in  my  position  to  get  talked  about — and  I 
have  my  little  boy  to  consider." 

Nevertheless,  whenever  Chelles  came  over  from 
Beaulieu  to  spend  a  day  with  his  aunt  and  cousin 
— an  excursion  he  not  infrequently  repeated — Undine 
was  at  no  pains  to  conceal  her  pleasure.  Nor  was  there 
anything  calculated  in  her  attitude.  Chelles  seemed  to 
her  more  charming  than  ever,  and  the  warmth  of  his 
wooing  was  in  flattering  contrast  to  the  cool  reserve  of 
his  manners.  At  last  she  felt  herself  alive  and  young 
again,  and  it  became  a  joy  to  look  in  her  glass  and  to 
try  on  her  new  hats  and  dresses.  .  . 

The  only  menace  ahead  was  the  usual  one  of  the 
want  of  money.  While  she  had  travelled  with  her 
parents  she  had  been  at  relatively  small  expense,  and 
since  their  return  to  America  Mr.  Spragg  had  sent  her 
allowance  regularly;  yet  almost  all  the  money  she  had 
received  for  the  pearls  was  already  gone,  and  she  knew 
her  Paris  season  would  be  far  more  expensive  than  the 
quiet  weeks  on  the  Riviera. 

Meanwhile  the  sense  of  reviving  popularity,  and  the 
charm  of  Chelles'  devotion,  had  almost  effaced  the 
ugly  memories  of  failure,  and  refurbished  that  image 
of  herself  in  other  minds  which  was  her  only  notion  of 
self-seeing.  Under  the  guidance  of  Madame  de  Trezac 
she  had  found  a  prettily  furnished  apartment  in  a  not 
too  inaccessible  quarter,  and  in  its  light  bright  drawing- 
room  she  sat  one  June  afternoon  listening,  with  all  the 
[401] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

forbearance  of  which  she  was  capable,  to  the  counsels 
of  her  newly-acquired  guide. 

"Everything  but  marriage "  Madame  de  Trezac 

was  repeating,  her  long  head  slightly  tilted,  her  features 
wearing  the  rapt  look  of  an  adept  reciting  a  hallowed 
formula.  . 

Raymond  deChelles  had  not  been  mentioned  by  either 
of  the  ladies,  and  the  former  Miss  Wincher  was  merely 
imparting  to  her  young  friend  one  of  the  fundamental 
dogmas  of  her  social  creed;  but  Undine  was  conscious 
that  the  air  between  them  vibrated  with  an  unspoken 
name.  She  made  no  immediate  answer,  but  her  glance, 
passing  by  Madame  de  Trezac's  dull  countenance, 
sought  her  own  reflection  in  the  mirror  behind  her 
visitor's  chair.  A  beam  of  spring  sunlight  touched  the 
living  masses  of  her  hair  and  made  the  face  beneath  as 
radiant  as  a  girl's.  Undine  smiled  faintly  at  the  promise 
her  own  eyes  gave  her,  and  then  turned  them  back  to 
her  friend.  "What  can  such  women  know  about  any 
thing?"  she  thought  compassionately. 

"There's  everything  against  it,"  Madame  de  Trezac 
continued  in  a  tone  of  patient  exposition.  She  seemed 
to  be  doing  her  best  to  make  the  matter  clear.  "In  the 
first  place,  between  people  in  society  a  religious  mar 
riage  is  necessary;  and,  since  the  Church  doesn't  recog 
nize  divorce,  that's  obviously  out  of  the  question.  In 
France,  a  man  of  position  who  goes  through  the  form 
of  civil  marriage  with  a  divorced  woman  is  simply 
[402] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

ruining  himself  and  her.  They  might  much  better — 
from  her  point  of  view  as  well  as  his — be  *  friends,'  as 
it's  called  over  here:  such  arrangements  are  understood 
and  allowed  for.  But  when  a  Frenchman  marries  he 
wants  to  marry  as  his  people  always  have.  He  knows 
there  are  traditions  he  can't  fight  against — and  in  his 
heart  he's  glad  there  are." 

"Oh,  I  know:  they've  so  much  religious  feeling.  I 
admire  that  in  them:  their  religion's  so  beautiful." 
Undine  looked  thoughtfully  at  her  visitor.  "I  suppose 
even  money — a  great  deal  of  money — wouldn't  make 
the  least  bit  of  difference?" 

"None  whatever,  except  to  make  matters  worse," 
Madame  de  Trezac  decisively  rejoined.  She  returned 
Undine's  look  with  something  of  Miss  Wincher's  con 
temptuous  authority.  "But,"  she  added,  softening  to 
a  smile,  "between  ourselves — I  can  say  it,  since  we're 
neither  of  us  children — a  woman  with  tact,  who's  not 
in  a  position  to  remarry,  will  find  society  extremely  in 
dulgent  . . .  provided,  of  course,  she  keeps  up  appear 
ances.  . ." 

Undine  turned  to  her  with  the  frown  of  a  startled 
Diana.  "We  don't  look  at  things  that  way  out  at 
Apex,"  she  said  coldly;  and  the  blood  rose  in  Madame 
de  Trezac's  sallow  cheek. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  it's  so  refreshing  to  hear  you  talk 
like  that!  Personally,  of  course,  I've  never  quite  got 

used  to  the  French  view " 

[4031 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"I  hope  no  American  woman  ever  does,"  said  Undine. 

She  had  been  in  Paris  for  about  two  months  when 
this  conversation  took  place,  and  in  spite  of  her  reviv 
ing  self-confidence  she  was  beginning  to  recognize  the 
strength  of  the  forces  opposed  to  her.  It  had  taken  a 
long  time  to  convince  her  that  even  money  could  not 
prevail  against  them;  and,  in  the  intervals  of  expressing 
her  admiration  for  the  Catholic  creed,  she  now  had  vio 
lent  reactions  of  militant  Protestantism,  during  which 
she  talked  of  the  tyranny  of  Rome  and  recalled  school 
stories  of  immoral  Popes  and  persecuting  Jesuits. 

Meanwhile  her  demeanour  to  Chelles  was  that  of  the 
incorruptible  but  fearless  American  woman,  who  can 
not  even  conceive  of  love  outside  of  marriage,  but  is 
ready  to  give  her  devoted  friendship  to  the  man  on 
whom,  in  happier  circumstances,  she  might  have  be 
stowed  her  hand.  This  attitude  was  provocative  of 
many  scenes,  during  which  her  suitor's  unfailing  powers 
of  expression — his  gift  of  looking  and  saying  all  the 
desperate  and  devoted  things  a  pretty  woman  likes  to 
think  she  inspires — gave  Undine  the  thrilling  sense  of 
breathing  the  very  air  of  French  fiction.  But  she  was 
aware  that  too  prolonged  tension  of  these  cords  usually 
ends  in  their  snapping,  and  that  Chelles'  patience  was 
probably  in  inverse  ratio  to  his  ardour. 

When  Madame  de  Trezac  had  left  her  these  thoughts 
remained  in  her  mind.  She  understood  exactly  wrhat 
each  of  her  new  friends  wanted  of  her.  The  Princess, 
[4041 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

who  was  fond  of  her  cousin,  and  had  the  French  sense 
of  family  solidarity,  would  have  liked  to  see  Chelles 
happy  in  what  seemed  to  her  the  only  imaginable  way. 
Madame  de  Trezac  would  have  liked  to  do  what  she 
could  to  second  the  Princess's  efforts  in  this  or  any 
other  line;  and  even  the  old  Duchess — though  piously 
desirous  of  seeing  her  favourite  nephew  married — 
would  have  thought  it  not  only  natural  but  inevitable 
that,  while  awaiting  that  happy  event,  he  should  try 
to  induce  an  amiable  young  woman  to  mitigate  the 
drawbacks  of  celibacy.  Meanwhile,  they  might  one  and 
all  weary  of  her  if  Chelles  did;  and  a  persistent  rejection 
of  his  suit  would  probably  imperil  her  scarcely-gained 
footing  among  his  friends.  All  this  was  clear  to  her,  yet 
it  did  not  shake  her  resolve.  She  was  determined  to  give 
up  Chelles  unless  he  was  willing  to  marry  her;  and  the 
thought  of  her  renunciation  moved  her  to  a  kind  of 
wistful  melancholy. 

In  this  mood  her  mind  reverted  to  a  letter  she  had 
just  received  from  her  mother.  Mrs.  Spragg  wrote  more 
fully  than  usual,  and  the  unwonted  flow  of  her  pen  had 
been  occasioned  by  an  event  for  which  she  had  long 
yearned.  For  months  she  had  pined  for  a  sight  of  her 
grandson,  had  tried  to  screw  up  her  courage  to  write 
and  ask  permission  to  visit  him,  and,  finally  breaking 
through  her  sedentary  habits,  had  begun  to  haunt  the 
neighbourhood  of  Washington  Square,  with  the  result 
that  one  afternoon  she  had  had  the  luck  to  meet  the 
[4051 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

little  boy  coming  out  of  the  house  with  his  nurse.  She 
had  spoken  to  him,  and  he  had  remembered  her  and 
called  her  "Granny";  and  the  next  day  she  had  re 
ceived  a  note  from  Mrs.  Fairford  saying  that  Ralph 
would  be  glad  to  send  Paul  to  see  her.  Mrs.  Spragg 
enlarged  on  the  delights  of  the  visit  and  the  growing 
beauty  and  cleverness  of  her  grandson.  She  described 
to  Undine  exactly  how  Paul  was  dressed,  how  he 
looked  and  what  he  said,  and  told  her  how  he  had 
examined  everything  in  the  room,  and,  finally  coming 
upon  his  mother's  photograph,  had  asked  who  the  lady 
was;  and,  on  being  told,  had  wanted  to  know  if  she  was 
a  very  long  way  off,  and  when  Granny  thought  she 
would  come  back. 

As  Undine  re-read  her  mother's  pages,  she  felt  an 
unusual  tightness  in  her  throat  and  two  tears  rose  to 
her  eyes.  It  was  dreadful  that  her  little  boy  should  be 
growing  up  far  away  from  her,  perhaps  dressed  in 
clothes  she  would  have  hated ;  and  wicked  and  unnatural 
that  when  he  saw  her  picture  he  should  have  to  be  told 
who  she  was.  "If  I  could  only  meet  some  good  man 
who  would  give  me  a  home  and  be  a  father  to  him," 
she  thought — and  the  tears  overflowed  and  ran  down. 

Even  as  they  fell,  the  door  was  thrown  open  to  ad 
mit  Raymond  de  Chelles,  and  the  consciousness  of  the 
moisture  still  glistening  on  her  cheeks  perhaps  strength 
ened  her  resolve  to  resist  him,  and  thus  made  her  more 
imperiously  to  be  desired.  Certain  it  is  that  on  that  day 
[406] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

her  suitor  first  alluded  to  a  possibility  which  Madame 
de  Trezac  had  prudently  refrained  from  suggesting, 
and  there  fell  upon  Undine's  attentive  ears  the  magic 
phrase  "annulment  of  marriage." 

Her  alert  intelligence  immediately  set  to  work  in 
this  new  direction;  but  almost  at  the  same  moment  she 
became  aware  of  a  subtle  change  of  tone  in  the  Princess 
and  her  mother,  a  change  reflected  in  the  correspond 
ing  decline  of  Madame  de  Trezac's  cordiality.  Undine, 
since  her  arrival  in  Paris,  had  necessarily  been  less  in 
the  Princess's  company,  but  when  they  met  she  had 
found  her  as  friendly  as  ever.  It  was  manifestly  not  a 
failing  of  the  Princess's  to  forget  past  favours,  and 
though  increasingly  absorbed  by  the  demands  of  town 
life  she  treated  her  new  friend  with  the  same  affectionate 
frankness,  and  Undine  was  given  frequent  opportuni 
ties  to  enlarge  her  Parisian  acquaintance,  not  only  in 
the  Princess's  intimate  circle  but  in  the  majestic  draw 
ing-rooms  of  the  Hotel  de  Dordogne.  Now,  however, 
there  was  a  perceptible  decline  in  these  signs  of  hos 
pitality,  and  Undine,  on  calling  one  day  on  the  Duchess, 
noticed  that  her  appearance  sent  a  visible  flutter  of 
discomfort  through  the  circle  about  her  hostess's  chair. 
Two  or  three  of  the  ladies  present  looked  away  from 
the  new-comer  and  at  each  other,  and  several  of  them 
seemed  spontaneously  to  encircle  without  approach 
ing  her,  while  another — grey-haired,  elderly  and  slightly 
frightened — with  an  "Adieu,  ma  bonne  tante"  to  the 
[4071 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Duchess,  was  hastily  aided  in  her  retreat  down  the 
long  line  of  old  gilded  rooms. 

The  incident  was  too  mute  and  rapid  to  have  been 
noticeable  had  it  not  been  followed  by  the  Duchess's 
resuming  her  conversation  with  the  ladies  nearest  her 
as  though  Undine  had  just  gone  out  of  the  room  in 
stead  of  entering  it.  The  sense  of  having  been  thus  ren 
dered  invisible  filled  Undine  with  a  vehement  desire 
to  make  herself  seen,  and  an  equally  strong  sense  that 
all  attempts  to  do  so  would  be  vain;  and  when,  a  few 
minutes  later,  she  issued  from  the  portals  of  the  Hotel 
de  Dordogne  it  was  with  the  fixed  resolve  not  to  enter 
them  again  till  she  had  had  an  explanation  with  the 
Princess. 

She  was  spared  the  trouble  of  seeking  one  by  the 
arrival,  early  the  next  morning,  of  Madame  de  Trezac, 
who,  entering  almost  with  the  breakfast  tray,  mysteri 
ously  asked  to  be  allowed  to  communicate  something 
of  importance. 

"  You'll  understand,  I  know,  the  Princess's  not  com 
ing  herself "  Madame  de  Trezac  began,  sitting  up 

very  straight  on  the  edge  of  the  arm-chair  over  which 
Undine's  lace  dressing-gown  hung. 

"If  there's  anything  she  wants  to  say  to  me,  I 
don't,"  Undine  answered,  leaning  back  among  her 
rosy  pillows,  and  reflecting  compassionately  that  the 
face  opposite  her  was  just  the  colour  of  the  cafe  au  lait 
she  was  pouring  out. 

[408] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"There  are  things  that  are  ...  that  might  seem  too 
pointed  ...  if  one  said  them  one's  self,"  Madame  de 
Trezac  continued.  "Our  dear  Lili's  so  good-natured  .  .  . 
she  so  hates  to  do  anything  unfriendly;  but  she  natu 
rally  thinks  first  of  her  mother.  .  ." 

"Her  mother?  What's  the  matter  with  her  mother?" 

"  I  told  her  I  knew  you  didn't  understand.  I  was  sure 
you'd  take  it  in  good  part. 

Undine  raised  herself  on  her  elbow.  "What  did  Lili 
tell  you  to  tell  me?" 

"Oh,  not  to  tell  you  .  .  .  simply  to  ask  if,  just  for  the 
present,  you'd  mind  avoiding  the  Duchess's  Thursdays 
.  .  .  calling  on  any  other  day,  that  is." 

"Any  other  day?  She's  not  at  home  on  any  other. 
Do  you  mean  she  doesn't  want  me  to  call?" 

"Well — not  while  the  Marquise  de  Chelles  is  in 
Paris.  She's  the  Duchess's  favourite  niece — and  of 
course  they  all  hang  together.  That  kind  of  family 
feeling  is  something  you  naturally  don't — 

Undine  had  a  sudden  glimpse  of  hidden  intricacies. 

"That  was  Raymond  de  Chelles'  mother  I  saw 
there  yesterday?  The  one  they  hurried  out  when  I 
came  in?" 

"It  seems  she  was  very  much  upset.  She  somehow 
heard  your  name." 

"Why  shouldn't  she  have  heard  my  name?  And  why 
in  the  world  should  it  upset  her?" 

Madame  de  Trezac  heaved  a  hesitating  sigh.  "Isn't 
[409] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

it  better  to  be  frank?  She  thinks  she  has  reason  to  feel 
badly— they  all  do." 

"To  feel  badly?  Because  her  son  wants  to  marry 
me?" 

"Of  course  they  know  that's  impossible."  Madame 
de  Trezac  smiled  compassionately.  "But  they're  afraid 
of  your  spoiling  his  other  chances." 

Undine   paused   a   moment  before   answering.    "It 
won't  be  impossible  when  my  marriage  is  annulled," 
she  said. 

The  effect  of  this  statement  was  less  electrifying  than 
she  had  hoped.  Her  visitor  simply  broke  into  a  laugh. 
"My  dear  child!  Your  marriage  annulled?  Who  can 
have  put  such  a  mad  idea  into  your  head?" 

Undine's  gaze  followed  the  pattern  she  was  tracing 
with  a  lustrous  nail  on  her  embroidered  bedspread. 
"Raymond  himself,"  she  let  fall. 

This  time  there  was  no  mistaking  the  effect  she  pro 
duced.  Madame  de  Trezac,  with  a  murmured  "Oh," 
sat  gazing  before  her  as  if  she  had  lost  the  thread  of 
her  argument;  and  it  was  only  after  a  considerable 
interval  that  she  recovered  it  sufficiently  to  exclaim: 
"They'll  never  hear  of  it — absolutely  never!" 

"But  they  can't  prevent  it,  can  they?" 

"They  can  prevent  its  being  of  any  use  to  you." 

"I  see,"  Undine  pensively  assented. 

She  knew  the  tone  she  had  taken  was  virtually  a 
declaration  of  war;  but  she  was  in  a  mood  when  the 
[4101 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

act  of  defiance,  apart  from  its  strategic  value,  was  a 
satisfaction  in  itself.  Moreover,  if  she  could  not  gain 
her  end  without  a  fight  it  was  better  that  the  battle 
should  be  engaged  while  Raymond's  ardour  was  at  its 
height.  To  provoke  immediate  hostilities  she  sent  for 
him  the  same  afternoon,  and  related,  quietly  and  with 
out  comment,  the  incident  of  her  visit  to  the  Duchess, 
and  the  mission  with  which  Madame  de  Trezac  had 
been  charged.  In  the  circumstances,  she  went  on  to 
explain,  it  was  manifestly  impossible  that  she  should 
continue  to  receive  his  visits;  and  she  met  his  wrath 
ful  comments  on  his  relatives  by  the  gently  but  firmly 
expressed  resolve  not  to  be  the  cause  of  any  disagree 
ment  between  himself  and  his  family. 

XXX 

A  FEW  days  after  her  decisive  conversation  with 
Raymond  de   Chelles,   Undine,   emerging  from 
the  doors  of  the  Nouveau  Luxe,  where  she  had  been  to 
call  on  the  newly-arrived  Mrs,  Homer  Branney,  once 
more  found  herself  face  to  face  with  Elmer  Moffatt. 

This  time  there  was  no  mistaking  his  eagerness  to 
be  recognized.  He  stopped  short  as  they  met,  and  she 
read  such  pleasure  in  his  eyes  that  she  too  stopped, 
holding  out  her  hand. 

"I'm  glad  you're  going  to  speak  to  me,"  she  said, 
and  Moffatt  reddened  at  the  allusion. 
[411] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Well,  I  very  nearly  didn't.  I  didn't  know  you.  You 
look  about  as  old  as  you  did  when  I  first  landed  at 
Apex — remember?  " 

He  turned  back  and  began  to  walk  at  her  side  in  the 
direction  of  the  Champs  Elysees. 

"Say — this  is  all  right!"  he  exclaimed;  and  she  saw 
that  his  glance  had  left  her  and  was  ranging  across  the 
wide  silvery  square  ahead  of  them  to  the  congregated 
domes  and  spires  beyond  the  river. 

"Do  you  like  Paris?"  she  asked,  wondering  what 
theatres  he  had  been  to. 

"It  beats  everything."  He  seemed  to  be  breathing 
in  deeply  the  impression  of  fountains,  sculpture,  leafy 
avenues  and  long-drawn  architectural  distances  fading 
into  the  afternoon  haze. 

"I  suppose  you've  been  to  that  old  church  over 
there?"  he  went  on,  his  gold-topped  stick  pointing 
toward  the  towers  of  Notre  Dame. 

"Oh,  of  course;  when  I  used  to  sightsee.  Have  you 
never  been  to  Paris  before?" 

"No,  this  is  my  first  look-round.  I  came  across  in 
Mart." 

"In  March?"  she  echoed  inattentively.  It  never  oc 
curred  to  her  that  other  people's  lives  went  on  when 
they  were  out  of  her  range  of  vision,  and  she  tried 
in  vain  to  remember  what  she  had  last  heard  of 
Moffatt.  "Wasn't  that  a  bad  time  to  leave  Wall 
Street?" 

[412] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Well,  so-so.  Fact  is,  I  was  played  out:  needed  a 
change."  Nothing  in  his  robust  mien  confirmed  the 
statement,  and  he  did  not  seem  inclined  to  develop  it. 
"I  presume  you're  settled  here  now?"  he  went  on.  "I 
saw  by  the  papers — 

"Yes,"  she  interrupted;  adding,  after  a  moment: 
"It  was  all  a  mistake  from  the  first." 

"Well,  I  never  thought  he  was  your  form,"  said 
Moffatt. 

His  eyes  had  come  back  to  her,  and  the  look  in  them 
struck  her  as  something  she  might  use  to  her  advan 
tage;  but  the  next  moment  he  had  glanced  away  with 
a  furrowed  brow,  and  she  felt  she  had  not  wholly  fixed 
his  attention. 

"I  live  at  the  other  end  of  Paris.  Why  not  come  back 
and  have  tea  with  me?"  she  suggested,  half  moved  by 
a  desire  to  know  more  of  his  affairs,  and  half  by  the 
thought  that  a  talk  with  him  might  help  to  shed  some 
light  on  hers. 

In  the  open  taxi-cab  he  seemed  to  recover  his  sense 
of  well-being,  and  leaned  back,  his  hands  on  the  knob 
of  his  stick,  with  the  air  of  a  man  pleasantly  aware  of 
his  privileges.  "This  Paris  is  a  thundering  good  place," 
he  repeated  once  or  twice  as  they  rolled  on  through 
the  crush  and  glitter  of  the  afternoon;  and  when  they 
had  descended  at  Undine's  door,  and  he  stood  in  her 
drawing-room,  and  looked  out  on  the  horse-chestnut 
trees  rounding  their  green  domes  under  the  balcony, 
[4131 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

his  satisfaction  culminated  in  the  comment:  "I  guess 
this  lays  out  West  End  Avenue!" 

His  eyes  met  Undine's  with  their  old  twinkle,  and 
their  expression  encouraged  her  to  murmur:  "Of  course 
there  are  times  when  I'm  very  lonely." 

She  sat  down  behind  the  tea-table,  and  he  stood 
at  a  little  distance,  watching  her  pull  off  her  gloves 
with  a  queer  comic  twitch  of  his  elastic  mouth.  "  Well, 
I  guess  it's  only  when  you  want  to  be,"  he  said,  grasp 
ing  a  lyre-backed  chair  by  its  gilt  cords,  and  sitting 
down  astride  of  it,  his  light  grey  trousers  stretching 
too  tightly  over  his  plump  thighs.  Undine  was  per 
fectly  aware  that  he  was  a  vulgar  over-dressed  man, 
with  a  red  crease  of  fat  above  his  collar  and  an  im 
pudent  swaggering  eye;  yet  she  liked  to  see  him  there, 
and  was  conscious  that  he  stirred  the  fibres  of  a  self 
she  had  forgotten  but  had  not  ceased  to  understand. 

She  had  fancied  her  avowal  of  loneliness  might  call 
forth  some  sentimental  phrase;  but  though  Moffatt 
was  clearly  pleased  to  be  with  her  she  saw  that  she 
was  not  the  centre  of  his  thoughts,  and  the  discovery 
irritated  her. 

"I  don't  suppose  you've  known  what  it  is  to  be  lonely 
since  you've  been  in  Europe?"  she  continued  as  she 
held  out  his  tea-cup. 

"Oh,"  he  said  jocosely,  "I  don't  always  go  round 
with  a  guide";  and  she  rejoined  on  the  same  note: 
"Then  perhaps  I  shall  see  something  of  you." 
[414] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Why,  there's  nothing  would  suit  me  better;  but 
the  fact  is,  I'm  probably  sailing  next  week." 

"Oh,  are  you?  I'm  sorry."  There  was  nothing 
feigned  in  her  regret. 

"Anything  I  can  do  for  you  across  the  pond?" 

She  hesitated.  "There's  something  you  can  do  for 
me  right  off." 

He  looked  at  her  more  attentively,  as  if  his  practised 
eye  had  passed  through  the  surface  of  her  beauty  to 
what  might  be  going  on  behind  it.  "Do  you  want  my 
blessing  again?"  he  asked  with  sudden  irony. 

Undine  opened  her  eyes  with  a  trustful  look.  "Yes 
—I  do." 

"Well— I'll  be  damned!"  said  Moffatt  gaily. 

"You've  always  been  so  awfully  nice,"  she  began; 
and  he  leaned  back,  grasping  both  sides  of  the  chair- 
back,  and  shaking  it  a  little  with  his  laugh. 

He  kept  the  same  attitude  while  she  proceeded  to 
unfold  her  case,  listening  to  her  with  the  air  of  sober 
concentration  that  his  frivolous  face  took  on  at  any 
serious  demand  on  his  attention.  When  she  had  ended 
he  kept  the  same  look  during  an  interval  of  silent  pon 
dering.  "Is  it  the  fellow  who  was  over  at  Nice  with  you 
that  day?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  surprise.  "How  did  you 
know?" 

"Why,  I  liked  his  looks,"  said  Moffatt  simply. 

He  got  up  and  strolled  toward  the  window.  On  the 
[415] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

way  he  stopped  before  a  table  covered  with  showy 
trifles,  and  after  looking  at  them  for  a  moment  singled 
out  a  dim  old  brown  and  golden  book  which  Chelles 
had  given  her.  He  examined  it  lingeringly,  as  though 
it  touched  the  spring  of  some  choked-up  sensibility  for 

which  he  had  no  language.  "Say "  he  began:  it 

was  the  usual  prelude  to  his  enthusiasms;  but  he  laid 
the  book  down  and  turned  back. 

"Then  you  think  if  you  had  the  cash  you  could  fix 
it  up  all  right  with  the  Pope?" 

Her  heart  began  to  beat.  She  remembered  that  he 
had  once  put  a  job  in  Ralph's  way,  and  had  let  her 
understand  that  he  had  done  it  partly  for  her  sake. 

"Well,"  he  continued,  relapsing  into  hyperbole,  "I 
wish  I  could  send  the  old  gentleman  my  cheque  to 
morrow  morning:  but  the  fact  is  I'm  high  and  dry/' 
He  looked  at  her  with  a  sudden  odd  intensity.  "If  I 
wasn  't,  I  dunno  but  what —  '  The  phrase  was  lost  in 
his  familiar  whistle.  "That's  an  awfully  fetching  way 
you  do  your  hair,"  he  said. 

It  was  a  disappointment  to  Undine  to  hear  that  his 
affairs  were  not  prospering,  for  she  knew  that  in  his 
world  "pull"  and  solvency  were  closely  related,  and 
that  such  support  as  she  had  hoped  he  might  give  her 
would  be  contingent  on  his  own  situation.  But  she  had 
again  a  fleeting  sense  of  his  mysterious  power  of  accom 
plishing  things  in  the  teeth  of  adversity;  and  she  an 
swered:  "What  I  want  is  your  advice." 
[416] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

He  turned  away  and  wandered  across  the  room,  his 
hands  in  his  pockets.  On  her  ornate  writing  desk  he 
saw  a  photograph  of  Paul,  bright-curled  and  sturdy- 
legged,  in  a  manly  reefer,  and  bent  over  it  with  a 
murmur  of  approval.  "Say — what  a  fellow!  Got  him 
with  you?" 

Undine  coloured.  "No "  she  began;  and  seeing 

his  look  of  surprise,  she  embarked  on  her  usual  ex 
planation.  "I  can't  tell  you  how  I  miss  him,"  she 
ended,  with  a  ring  of  truth  that  carried  conviction  to 
her  own  ears  if  not  to  Moffatt's. 

"Why  don't  you  get  him  back,  then?" 

"Why,  I- 

Moffatt  had  picked  up  the  frame  and  was  looking  at 
the  photograph  more  closely.  "Pants!"  he  chuckled. 
"I  declare!" 

He  turned  back  to  Undine.  "Who  does  he  belong  to, 
anyhow?" 

"Belong  to?" 

"Who  got  him  when  you  were  divorced?  Did  you?" 

"Oh,  I  got  everything,"  she  said,  her  instinct  of  self- 
defense  on  the  alert. 

"So  I  thought."  He  stood  before  her,  stoutly  planted 
on  his  short  legs,  and  speaking  with  an  aggressive  en 
ergy.  "Well,  I  know  what  I'd  do  if  he  was  mine." 

"If  he  was  yours?" 

"And  you  tried  to  get  him  away  from  me.  Fight  you 
to  a  finish !  If  it  cost  me  down  to  my  last  dollar  I  would." 
[417] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  conversation  seemed  to  be  wandering  from  the 
point,  and  she  answered,  with  a  touch  of  impatience: 
"It  wouldn't  cost  you  anything  like  that.  I  haven't 
got  a  dollar  to  fight  back  with." 

"Well,  you  ain't  got  to  fight.  Your  decree  gave  him 
to  you,  didn't  it?  Why  don't  you  send  right  over  and 
get  him?  That's  what  I'd  do  if  I  was  you." 

Undine  looked  up.  "But  I'm  awfully  poor;  I  can't 
afford  to  have  him  here." 

"You  couldn't,  up  to  now;  but  now  you're  going  to 
get  married.  You're  going  to  be  able  to  give  him  a 
home  and  a  father's  care — and  the  foreign  languages. 
That's  what  I'd  say  if  I  was  you.  .  .  His  father  takes 
considerable  stock  in  him,  don't  he?" 

She  coloured,  a  denial  on  her  lips;  but  she  could  not 
shape  it.  "We're  both  awfully  fond  of  him,  of  course.  .  . 
His  father 'd  never  give  him  up!" 

"Just  so."  Moffatt's  face  had  grown  as  sharp  as 
glass.  "You've  got  the  Marvells  running.  All  you've 
got  to  do's  to  sit  tight  and  wait  for  their  cheque."  He 
dropped  back  to  his  equestrian  seat  on  the  lyre-backed 
chair. 

Undine  stood  up  and  moved  uneasily  toward  the 
window.  She  seemed  to  see  her  little  boy  as  though  he 
were  in  the  room  with  her;  she  did  not  understand  how 
she  could  have  lived  so  long  without  him.  .  .  She  stood 
for  a  long  time  without  speaking,  feeling  behind  her 
the  concentrated  irony  of  Moffatt's  gaze. 
[418] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"You  couldn't  lend  me  the  money — manage  to  bor 
row  it  for  me,  I  mean?"  she  finally  turned  back  to  ask. 

He  laughed.  "If  I  could  manage  to  borrow  any  money 
at  this  particular  minute — well,  I'd  have  to  lend  every 
dollar  of  it  to  Elmer  Moffatt,  Esquire.  I'm  stone-broke, 
if  you  want  to  know.  And  wanted  for  an  Investigation 
too.  That's  why  I'm  over  here  improving  my  mind." 

"Why,  I  thought  you  were  going  home  next  week?" 

He  grinned.  "I  am,  because  I've  found  out  there's 
a  party  wants  me  to  stay  away  worse  than  the  courts 
want  me  back.  Making  the  trip  just  for  my  private 
satisfaction — there  won't  be  any  money  in  it,  I'm 
afraid." 

Leaden  disappointment  descended  on  Undine.  She 
had  felt  almost  sure  of  Moffatt's  helping  her,  and  for 
an  instant  she  wondered  if  some  long-smouldering 
jealousy  had  flamed  up  under  its  cold  cinders.  But  an 
other  look  at  his  face  denied  her  this  solace;  and  his 
evident  indifference  was  the  last  blow  to  her  pride.  The 
twinge  it  gave  her  prompted  her  to  ask:  "Don't  you 
ever  mean  to  get  married?" 

Moffatt  gave  her  a  quick  look.  "Why,  I  shouldn't 
wonder — one  of  these  days.  Millionaires  always  collect 
something;  but  I've  got  to  collect  my  millions  first." 

He  spoke  coolly  and  half -humorously,  and  before  he 
had  ended  she  had  lost  all  interest  in  his  reply.  He 
seemed  aware  of  the  fact,  for  he  stood  up  and  held  out 
his  hand. 

I  419  ] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Well,  so  long,  Mrs.  Marvell.  It's  been  uncommonly 
pleasant  to  see  you;  and  you'd  better  think  over  what 
I've  said." 

She  laid  her  hand  sadly  in  his.  "You've  never  had  a 
child,"  she  replied. 


[420] 


BOOK  IV 


XXXI 

NEARLY  two  years  had  passed  since  Ralph  Mar- 
veil,  waking  from  his  long  sleep  in  the  hot  sum 
mer  light  of  Washington  Square,  had  found  that  the 
face  of  life  was  changed  for  him. 

In  the  interval  he  had  gradually  adapted  himself  to 
the  new  order  of  things;  but  the  months  of  adaptation 
had  been  a  time  of  such  darkness  and  confusion  that, 
from  the  vantage-ground  of  his  recovered  lucidity,  he 
could  not  yet  distinguish  the  stages  by  which  he  had 
worked  his  way  out;  and  even  now  his  footing  was  not 
secure. 

His  first  effort  had  been  to  readjust  his  values — to 
take  an  inventory  of  them,  and  reclassify  them,  so 
that  one  at  least  might  be  made  to  appear  as  impor 
tant  as  those  he  had  lost;  otherwise  there  could  be  no 
reason  why  he  should  go  on  living.  He  applied  himself 
doggedly  to  this  attempt;  but  whenever  he  thought 
he  had  found  a  reason  that  his  mind  could  rest  in,  it 
gave  way  under  him,  and  the  old  struggle  for  a  foot 
hold  began  again.  His  two  objects  in  life  were  his 
boy  and  his  book.  The  boy  was  incomparably  the 
stronger  argument,  yet  the  less  serviceable  in  filling 
[423] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

the  void.  Ralph  felt  his  son  all  the  while,  and  all  through 
his  other  feelings;  but  he  could  not  think  about  him 
actively  and  continuously,  could  not  forever  exercise 
his  eager  empty  dissatisfied  mind  on  the  relatively 
simple  problem  of  clothing,  educating  and  amusing  a 
little  boy  of  six.  Yet  Paul's  existence  was  the  all-suffi 
cient  reason  for  his  own;  and  he  turned  again,  with  a 
kind  of  cold  fervour,  to  his  abandoned  literary  dream. 
Material  needs  obliged  him  to  go  on  with  his  regular 
business;  but,  the  day's  work  over,  he  was  possessed 
of  a  leisure  as  bare  and  as  blank  as  an  unfurnished 
house,  yet  that  was  at  least  his  own  to  furnish  as  he 
pleased. 

Meanwhile  he  was  beginning  to  show  a  presentable 
face  to  the  world,  and  to  be  once  more  treated  like  a 
man  in  whose  case  no  one  is  particularly  interested. 
His  men  friends  ceased  to  say:  "Hallo,  old  chap,  I 
never  saw  you  looking  fitter!"  and  elderly  ladies  no 
longer  told  him  they  were  sure  he  kept  too  much  to 
himself,  and  urged  him  to  drop  in  any  afternoon  for  a 
quiet  talk.  People  left  him  to  his  sorrow  as  a  man  is 
left  to  an  incurable  habit,  an  unfortunate  tie:  they 
ignored  it,  or  looked  over  its  head  if  they  happened 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  it  at  his  elbow. 

These  glimpses  were  given  to  them  more  and  more 

rarely.  The  smothered  springs  of  life  were  bubbling  up 

in  Ralph,  and  there  were  days  when  he  was  glad  to 

wake  and  see  the  sun  in  his  window,  and  when  he  began 

[424] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

to  plan  his  book,  and  to  fancy  that  the  planning 
really  interested  him.  He  could  even  maintain  the  delu 
sion  for  several  days — for  intervals  each  time  apprecia 
bly  longer — before  it  shrivelled  up  again  in  a  scorching 
blast  of  disenchantment.  The  worst  of  it  was  that  he 
could  never  tell  when  these  hot  gusts  of  anguish  would 
overtake  him.  They  came  sometimes  just  when  he  felt 
most  secure,  when  he  was  saying  to  himself:  "After  all, 

things  are  really  worth  while "   sometimes    even 

when  he  was  sitting  with  Clare  Van  Degen,  listening  to 
her  voice,  watching  her  hands,  and  turning  over  in 
his  mind  the  opening  chapters  of  his  book. 

"You  ought  to  write";  they  had  one  and  all  said  it 
to  him  from  the  first;  and  he  fancied  he  might  have 
begun  sooner  if  he  had  not  been  urged  on  by  their 
watchful  fondness.  Everybody  wanted  him  to  write — 
everybody  had  decided  that  he  ought  to,  that  he 
would,  that  he  must  be  persuaded  to;  and  the  in 
cessant  imperceptible  pressure  of  encouragement — the 
assumption  of  those  about  him  that  because  it  would 
be  good  for  him  to  write  he  must  naturally  be  able  to 
— acted  on  his  restive  nerves  as  a  stronger  deterrent 
than  disapproval. 

Even  Clare  had  fallen  into  the  same  mistake;  and 
one  day,  as  he  sat  talking  with  her  on  the  verandah  of 
Laura  Fairford's  house  on  the  Sound — where  they  now 
most  frequently  met — Ralph  had  half-impatiently  re 
joined:  "Oh,  if  you  think  it's  literature  I  need !" 

[4251 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Instantly  he  had  seen  her  face  change,  and  the 
speaking  hands  tremble  on  her  knee.  But  she  achieved 
the  feat  of  not  answering  him,  or  turning  her  steady 
eyes  from  the  dancing  mid-summer  water  at  the  foot 
of  Laura's  lawn.  Ralph  leaned  a  little  nearer,  and  for 
an  instant  his  hand  imagined  the  flutter  of  hers.  But 
instead  of  clasping  it  he  drew  back,  and  rising  from 
his  chair  wandered  away  to  the  other  end  of  the 
verandah.  .  .  No,  he  didn't  feel  as  Clare  felt.  If  he 
loved  her — as  he  sometimes  thought  he  did — it  was 
not  in  the  same  way.  He  had  a  great  tenderness  for 
her,  he  was  more  nearly  happy  with  her  than  with  any 
one  else;  he  liked  to  sit  and  talk  with  her,  and  watch 
her  face  and  her  hands,  and  he  wished  there  were  some 
way — some  different  way — of  letting  her  know  it;  but 
he  could  not  co'nceive  that  tenderness  and  desire  could 
ever  again  be  one  for  him :  such  a  notion  as  that  seemed 
part  of  the  monstrous  sentimental  muddle  on  which  his 
life  had  gone  aground. 

"I  shall  write — of  course  I  shall  write  some  day," 
he  said,  turning  back  to  his  seat.  "I've  had  a  novel  in 
the  back  of  my  head  for  years;  and  now's  the  time  to 
pull  it  out." 

He  hardly  knew  what  he  was  saying;  but  before  the 
end  of  the  sentence  he  saw  that  Clare  had  under 
stood  what  he  meant  to  convey,  and  henceforth  he  felt 
committed  to  letting  her  talk  to  him  as  much  as  she 
pleased  about  his  book.  He  himself,  in  consequence, 
F4261 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

took  to  thinking  about  it  more  consecutively;  and  just 
as  his  friends  ceased  to  urge  him  to  write,  he  sat  down 
in  earnest  to  begin. 

The  vision  that  had  come  to  him  had  no  likeness  to 
any  of  his  earlier  imaginings.  Two  or  three  subjects 
had  haunted  him,  pleading  for  expression,  during  the 
first  years  of  his  marriage;  but  these  now  seemed  either 
too  lyrical  or  too  tragic.  He  no  longer  saw  life  on  the 
heroic  scale:  he  wanted  to  do  something  in  which  men 
should  look  no  bigger  than  the  insects  they  were.  He 
contrived  in  the  course  of  time  to  reduce  one  of  his 
old  subjects  to  these  dimensions,  and  after  nights  of 
brooding  he  made  a  dash  at  it,  and  wrote  an  opening 
chapter  that  struck  him  as  not  too  bad.  In  the  exhilara 
tion  of  this  first  attempt  he  spent  some  pleasant  even 
ings  revising  and  polishing  his  work;  and  gradually  a 
feeling  of  authority  and  importance  developed  in  him. 
In  the  morning,  when  he  woke,  instead  of  his  habitual 
sense  of  lassitude,  he  felt  an  eagerness  to  be  up  and 
doing,  and  a  conviction  that  his  individual  task  was  a 
necessary  part  of  the  world's  machinery.  He  kept  his 
secret  with  the  beginner's  deadly  fear  of  losing  his  hold 
on  his  half -real  creations  if  he  let  in  any  outer  light  on 
them;  but  he  went  about  with  a  more  assured  step, 
shrank  less  from  meeting  his  friends,  and  even  began 
to  dine  out  again,  and  to  laugh  at  some  of  the  jokes  he 
heard. 

Laura  Fairford,  to  get  Paul  away  from  town,  had 
[427] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

gone  early  to  the  country;  and  Ralph,  who  went  down 
to  her  every  Saturday,  usually  found  Clare  Van  Degen 
there.  Since  his  divorce  he  had  never  entered  his  cousin's 
pinnacled  palace;  and  Clare  had  never  asked  him  why 
he  stayed  away.  This  mutual  silence  had  been  their 
sole  allusion  to  Van  Degen's  share  in  the  catastrophe, 
though  Ralph  had  spoken  frankly  of  its  other  aspects. 
They  talked,  however,  most  often  of  impersonal  sub 
jects — books,  pictures,  plays,  or  whatever  the  world 
that  interested  them  was  doing — and  she  showed  no 
desire  to  draw  him  back  to  his  own  affairs.  She  was 
again  staying  late  in  town — to  have  a  pretext,  as  he 
guessed,  for  coming  down  on  Sundays  to  the  Fairfords' 
— and  they  often  made  the  trip  together  in  her  motor; 
but  he  had  not  yet  spoken  to  her  of  having  begun  his 
book.  One  May  evening,  however,  as  they  sat  alone 
in  the  verandah,  he  suddenly  told  her  that  he  was 
writing.  As  he  spoke  his  heart  beat  like  a  boy's;  but 
once  the  words  were  out  they  gave  him  a  feeling  of 
self-confidence,  and  he  began  to  sketch  his  plan,  and 
then  to  go  into  its  details.  Clare  listened  devoutly,  her 
eyes  burning  on  him  through  the  dusk  like  the  stars 
deepening  above  the  garden;  and  when  she  got  up  to 
go  in  he  followed  her  with  a  new  sense  of  reassurance. 
The  dinner  that  evening  was  unusually  pleasant. 
Charles  Bowen,  just  back  from  his  usual  spring  travels, 
had  come  straight  down  to  his  friends  from  the  steamer; 
and  the  fund  of  impressions  he  brought  with  him  gave 
[  428  ] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Ralph  a  desire  to  be  up  and  wandering.  And  why  not 
— when  the  book  was  done?  He  smiled  across  the  table 
at  Clare. 

"Next  summer  you'll  have  to  charter  a  yacht,  and 
take  us  all  off  to  the  ^Egean.  We  can't  have  Charles  con 
descending  to  us  about  the  out-of-the-way  places  he's 
been  seeing." 

Was  it  really  he  who  was  speaking,  and  his  cousin 
who  was  sending  him  back  her  dusky  smile?  Well — 
why  not,  again?  The  seasons  renewed  themselves,  and 
he  too  was  putting  out  a  new  growth.  "  My  book — my 
book — my  book,"  kept  repeating  itself  under  all  his 
thoughts,  as  Undine's  name  had  once  perpetually  mur 
mured  there.  That  night  as  he  went  up  to  bed  he  said 
to  himself  that  he  was  actually  ceasing  to  think  about 
his  wife.  .  . 

As  he  passed  Laura's  door  she  called  him  in,  and  put 
her  arms  about  him. 

"You  look  so  well,  dear!" 

"But  why  shouldn't  I?"  he  answered  gaily,  as  if 
ridiculing  the  fancy  that  he  had  ever  looked  otherwise. 
Paul  was  sleeping  behind  the  next  door,  and  the  sense 
of  the  boy's  nearness  gave  him  a  warmer  glow.  His  little 
world  was  rounding  itself  out  again,  and  once  more  he 
felt  safe  and  at  peace  in  its  circle. 

His  sister  looked  as  if  she  had  something  more  to 
say;  but  she  merely  kissed  him  good   night,  and  he 
went  up  whistling  to  his  room. 
[4291 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  next  morning  he  was  to  take  a  walk  with  Clare, 
and  while  he  lounged  about  the  drawing-room,  waiting 
for  her  to  come  down,  a  servant  came  in  with  the 
Sunday  papers.  Ralph  picked  one  up,  and  was  absently 
unfolding  it  when  his  eye  fell  on  his  own  name :  a  sight 
he  had  been  spared  since  the  last  echoes  of  his  divorce 
had  subsided.  His  impulse  was  to  fling  the  paper  down, 
to  hurl  it  as  far  from  him  as  he  could;  but  a  grim  fas 
cination  tightened  his  hold  and  drew  his  eyes  back  to 
the  hated  head-line. 

NEW  YORK  BEAUTY  WEDS  FRENCH 
NOBLEMAN 

MBS.  UNDINE  MARVELL  CONFIDENT  POPE  WILL 

ANNUL  PREVIOUS  MARRIAGE 
MRS.  MARVELL  TALKS  ABOUT  HER  CASE 

There  it  was  before  him  in  all  its  long-drawn  horror 
— an  "interview" — an  "interview"  of  Undine's  about 
her  coming  marriage!  Ah,  she  talked  about  her  case 
indeed!  Her  confidences  filled  the  greater  part  of  a 
column,  and  the  only  detail  she  seemed  to  have  omitted 
was  the  name  of  her  future  husband,  who  was  referred 
to  by  herself  as  "my  fiance"  and  by  the  interviewer  as 
"the  Count"  or  "a  prominent  scion  of  the  French 
nobility." 

Ralph  heard  Laura's  step  behind  him.  He  threw  the 
paper  aside  and  their  eyes  met. 

"Is  this  what  you  wanted  to  tell  me  last  night?" 

"Last  night? — Is  it  in  the  papers?" 
[430] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Who  told  you?  Bowen?  What  else  has  he  heard?" 

"Oh,  Ralph,  what  does  it  matter — what  can  it 
matter?" 

"Who's  the  man?  Did  he  tell  you  that?"  Ralph  in 
sisted.  He  saw  her  growing  agitation.  "Why  can't  you 
answer?  Is  it  any  one  I  know?" 

"He  was  told  in  Paris  it  was  his  friend  Raymond  de 
Chelles." 

Ralph  laughed,  and  his  laugh  sounded  in  his  own 
ears  like  an  echo  of  the  dreary  mirth  with  which  he  had 
filled  Mr.  Spragg's  office  the  day  he  had  learned  that 
Undine  intended  to  divorce  him.  But  now  his  wrath 
was  seasoned  with  a  wholesome  irony.  The  fact  of  his 
wife's  having  reached  another  stage  in  her  ascent  fell 
into  its  place  as  a  part  of  the  huge  human  buffoonery. 

"Besides,"  Laura  went  on,  "it's  all  perfect  non 
sense,  of  course.  How  in  the  world  can  she  have  her 
marriage  annulled?" 

Ralph  pondered:  this  put  the  matter  in  another  light. 
"With  a  great  deal  of  money  I  suppose  she  might." 

"Well,  she  certainly  won't  get  that  from  Chelles. 
He's  far  from  rich,  Charles  tells  me."  Laura  waited, 
watching  him,  before  she  risked:  "That's  what  con 
vinces  me  she  wouldn't  have  him  if  she  could." 

Ralph  shrugged.  "There  may  be  other  inducements. 
But  she  won't  be  able  to  manage  it."  He  heard  himself 
speaking  quite  collectedly.  Had  Undine  at  last  lost  her 
power  of  wounding  him? 

[431] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Clare  came  in,  dressed  for  their  walk,  and  under 
Laura's  anxious  eyes  he  picked  up  the  newspaper  and 
held  it  out  with  a  careless:  "Look  at  this!" 

His  cousin's  glance  flew  down  the  column,  and  he 
saw  the  tremor  of  her  lashes  as  she  read.  Then  she 
lifted  her  head.  "But  you'll  be  free!"  Her  face  was  as 
vivid  as  a  flower. 

"Free?  I'm  free  now,  as  far  as  that  goes!" 

"Oh,  but  it  will  go  so  much  farther  when  she  has 
another  name — when  she's  a  different  person  altogether ! 
Then  you'll  really  have  Paul  to  yourself." 

"Paul?"  Laura  intervened  with  a  nervous  laugh. 
"But  there's  never  been  the  least  doubt  about  his 
having  Paul!" 

They  heard  the  boy's  laughter  on  the  lawn,  and  she 
went  out  to  join  him.  Ralph  was  still  looking  at  his 
cousin. 

"You're  glad,  then?"  came  from  him  involuntarily; 
and  she  startled  him  by  bursting  into  tears.  He  bent 
over  and  kissed  her  on  the  cheek. 

XXXII 

T^ALPH,  as  the  days  passed,  felt  that  Clare  was 
XV  right :  if  Undine  married  again  he  would  possess 
himself  more  completely,  be  more  definitely  rid  of  his 
past.  And  he  did  not  doubt  that  she  would  gain  her 
end:  he  knew  her  violent  desires  and  her  cold  tenacity. 
[432] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

If  she  had  failed  to  capture  Van  Degen  it  was  probably 
because  she  lacked  experience  of  that  particular  type 
of  man,  of  his  huge  immediate  wants  and  feeble  vacil 
lating  purposes;  most  of  all,  because  she  had  not  yet 
measured  the  strength  of  the  social  considerations  that 
restrained  him.  It  was  a  mistake  she  was  not  likely  to 
repeat,  and  her  failure  had  probably  been  a  useful  pre 
liminary  to  success.  It  was  a  long  time  since  Ralph 
had  allowed  himself  to  think  of  her,  and  as  he  did  so 
the  overwhelming  fact  of  her  beauty  became  present 
to  him  again,  no  longer  as  an  element  of  his  being  but 
as  a  power  dispassionately  estimated.  He  said  to  him 
self:  "Any  man  who  can  feel  at  all  will  feel  it  as  I  did"; 
and  the  conviction  grew  in  him  that  Raymond  de 
Chelles,  of  whom  he  had  formed  an  idea  through 
Bowen's  talk,  was  not  the  man  to  give  her  up,  even 
if  she  failed  to  obtain  the  release  his  religion  ex 
acted. 

Meanwhile  Ralph  was  gradually  beginning  to  feel 
himself  freer  and  lighter.  Undine's  act,  by  cutting  the 
last  link  between  them,  seemed  to  have  given  him 
back  to  himself;  and  the  mere  fact  that  he  could  con 
sider  his  case  in  all  its  bearings,  impartially  and  iron 
ically,  showed  him  the  distance  he  had  travelled,  the 
extent  to  which  he  had  renewed  himself.  He  had  been 
moved,  too,  by  Clare's  cry  of  joy  at  his  release.  Though 
the  nature  of  his  feeling  for  her  had  not  changed  he 
was  aware  of  a  new  quality  in  their  friendship.  When  he 
[433] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

went  back  to  his  book  again  his  sense  of  power  had 
lost  its  asperity,  and  the  spectacle  of  life  seemed  less 
like  a  witless  dangling  of  limp  dolls.  He  was  well  on  in 
his  second  chapter  now. 

This  lightness  of  mood  was  still  on  him  when,  re 
turning  one  afternoon  to  Washington  Square,  full  of 
projects  for  a  long  evening's  work,  he  found  his  mother 
awaiting  him  with  a  strange  face.  He  followed  her  into 
the  drawing-room,  and  she  explained  that  there  had 
been  a  telephone  message  she  didn't  understand — 
something  perfectly  crazy  about  Paul — of  course  it 
was  all  a  mistake.  .  . 

Ralph's  first  thought  was  of  an  accident,  and  his 
heart  contracted.  "Did  Laura  telephone?" 

"No,  no;  not  Laura.  It  seemed  to  be  a  message  from 
Mrs.  Spragg:  something  about  sending  some  one  here 
to  fetch  him — a  queer  name  like  Heeny — to  fetch  him 
to  a  steamer  on  Saturday.  I  was  to  be  sure  to  have  his 
things  packed  .  .  .  but  of  course  it's  a  misunderstand 
ing.  .  ."  She  gave  an  uncertain  laugh,  and  looked  up  at 
Ralph  as  though  entreating  him  to  return  the  reassur 
ance  she  had  given  him. 

"Of  course,  of  course,"  he  echoed. 

He  made  his  mother  repeat  her  statement;  but  the 
unforeseen  always  flurried  her,  and  she  was  confused 
and  inaccurate.  She  didn't  actually  know  who  had  tele 
phoned  :  the  voice  hadn't  sounded  like  Mrs.  Spragg's.  .  . 
A  woman's  voice;  yes — oh,  not  a  lady's!  And  there  was 
[434] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

certainly  something  about  a  steamer  .  .  .  but  he  knew 
how  the  telephone  bewildered  her  .  .  .  and  she  was  sure 
she  was  getting  a  little  deaf.  Hadn't  he  better  call  up 
the  Malibran?  Of  course  it  was  all  a  mistake — but  .  .  . 
well,  perhaps  he  had  better  go  there  himself.  .  . 

As  he  reached  the  front  door  a  letter  clinked  in  the 
box,  and  he  saw  his  name  on  an  ordinary  looking 
business  envelope.  He  turned  the  door-handle,  paused 
again,  and  stooped  to  take  out  the  letter.  It  bore  the 
address  of  the  firm  of  lawyers  who  had  represented 
Undine  in  the  divorce  proceedings  and  as  he  tore  open 
the  envelope  Paul's  name  started  out  at  him. 

Mrs.  Mar  veil  had  followed  him  into  the  hall,  and  her 
cry  broke  the  silence.  "Ralph — Ralph — is  it  anything 
she's  done?" 

"Nothing— it's  nothing."  He  stared  at  her.  "What's 
the  day  of  the  week?" 

"Wednesday.  Why, what ?"She  suddenly  seemed 

to  understand.  "She's  not  going  to  take  him  away  from 
us?" 

Ralph  dropped  into  a  chair,  crumpling  the  letter  in 
his  hand.  He  had  been  in  a  dream,  poor  fool  that  he  was 
— a  dream  about  his  child !  He  sat  gazing  at  the  type 
written  phrases  that  spun  themselves  out  before  him. 
"My  client's  circumstances  now  happily  permitting  .  .  . 
at  last  in  a  position  to  offer  her  son  a  home  .  .  .  long 
separation  ...  a  mother's  feelings  .  .  .  every  social  and 
educational  advantage"  .  .  .  and  then,  at  the  end,  the 
[4351 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

poisoned  dart  that  struck  him  speechless:  "The  courts 
having  awarded  her  the  sole  custody.  .  ." 

The  sole  custody!  But  that  meant  that  Paul  was  hers, 
hers  only,  hers  for  always :  that  his  father  had  no  more 
claim  on  him  than  any  casual  stranger  in  the  street! 
And  he,  Ralph  Mar  veil,  a  sane  man,  young,  able-bodied, 
in  full  possession  of  his  wits,  had  assisted  at  the  per 
petration  of  this  abominable  wrong,  had  passively  for 
feited  his  right  to  the  flesh  of  his  body,  the  blood  of 
his  being!  But  it  couldn't  be — of  course  it  couldn't  be. 
The  preposterousness  of  it  proved  that  it  wasn't  true. 
There  was  a  mistake  somewhere;  a  mistake  his  own 
lawyer  would  instantly  rectify.  If  a  hammer  hadn't 
been  drumming  in  his  head  he  could  have  recalled  the 
terms  of  the  decree — but  for  the  moment  all  the  details 
of  the  agonizing  episode  were  lost  in  a  blur  of  un 
certainty. 

To  escape  his  mother's  silent  anguish  of  interroga 
tion  he  stood  up  and  said:  "I'll  see  Mr.  Spragg — of 
course  it's  a  mistake."  But  as  he  spoke  he  retra  veiled 
the  hateful  months  during  the  divorce  proceedings,  re 
membering  his  incomprehensible  lassitude,  his  acqui 
escence  in  his  family's  determination  to  ignore  the 
whole  episode,  and  his  gradual  lapse  into  the  same 
state  of  apathy.  He  recalled  all  the  old  family  catch 
words,  the  full  and  elaborate  vocabulary  of  evasion: 
"delicacy,"  "pride,"  "personal  dignity,"  "preferring 
not  to  know  about  such  things";  Mrs.  Marvell's:  "All 
[436] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

I  ask  is  that  you  won't  mention  the  subject  to  your 
grandfather,"  Mr.  Dagonet's:  "Spare  your  mother, 
Ralph,  whatever  happens,"  and  even  Laura's  terrified: 
"Of  course,  for  Paul's  sake,  there  must  be  no  scandal." 

For  Paul's  sake !  And  it  was  because,  for  Paul's  sake, 
there  must  be  no  scandal,  that  he,  Paul's  father,  had 
tamely  abstained  from  defending  his  rights  and  con 
testing  his  wife's  charges,  and  had  thus  handed  the 
child  over  to  her  keeping! 

As  his  cab  whirled  him  up  Fifth  Avenue,  Ralph's 
whole  body  throbbed  with  rage  against  the  influences 
that  had  reduced  him  to  such  weakness.  Then,  gradually, 
he  saw  that  the  weakness  was  innate  in  him.  He  had 
been  eloquent  enough,  in  his  free  youth,  against  the 
conventions  of  his  class ;  yet  when  the  moment  came  to 
show  his  contempt  for  them  they  had  mysteriously 
mastered  him,  deflecting  his  course  like  some  hidden 
hereditary  failing.  As  he  looked  back  it  seemed  as  though 
even  his  great  disaster  had  been  conventionalized  and 
sentimentalized  by  this  inherited  attitude:  that  the 
thoughts  he  had  thought  about  it  were  only  those  of 
generations  of  Dagonets,  and  that  there  had  been 
nothing  real  and  his  own  in  his  life  but  the  foolish  pas 
sion  he  had  been  trying  so  hard  to  think  out  of  existence. 

Halfway  to  the  Malibran  he  changed  his  direction, 

and  drove  to  the  house  of  the  lawyer  he  had  consulted 

at  the  time  of  his  divorce.  The  lawyer  had  not  yet  come 

up  town,  and  Ralph  had  a  half  hour  of  bitter  meditar 

[4371 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

tion  before  the  sound  of  a  latch-key  brought  him  to 
his  feet.  The  visit  did  not  last  long.  His  host,  after  an 
affable  greeting,  listened  without  surprise  to  what  he 
had  to  say,  and  when  he  had  ended  reminded  him  with 
somewhat  ironic  precision  that,  at  the  time  of  the 
divorce,  he  had  asked  for  neither  advice  nor  informa 
tion — had  simply  declared  that  he  wanted  to  "turn  his 
back  on  the  whole  business"  (Ralph  recognized  the 
phrase  as  one  of  his  grandfather's),  and,  on  hearing 
that  in  that  case  he  had  only  to  abstain  from  action, 
and  was  in  no  need  of  legal  services,  had  gone  away 
without  farther  enquiries. 

"You  led  me  to  infer  you  had  your  reasons "  the 

slighted  counsellor  concluded;  and,  in  reply  to  Ralph's 
breathless  question,  he  subjoined,  "Why,  you  see,  the 
case  is  closed,  and  I  don't  exactly  know  on  what  ground 
you  can  re-open  it — unless,  of  course,  you  can  bring 
evidence  showing  that  the  irregularity  of  the  mother's 
life  is  such  ..." 

"She's  going  to  marry  again,"  Ralph  threw  in. 

"Indeed?  Well,  that  in  itself  can  hardly  be  described 
as  irregular.  In  fact,  in  certain  circumstances  it  might 
be  construed  as  an  advantage  to  the  child." 

"Then  I'm  powerless?" 

"Why — unless  there's  an  ulterior  motive — through 
which  pressure  might  be  brought  to  bear." 

"You  mean  that  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to  find  out 
what  she's  up  to?" 

[438] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Precisely.  Of  course,  if  it  should  prove  to  be  a 
genuine  case  of  maternal  feeling,  I  won't  conceal  from 
you  that  the  outlook's  bad.  At  most,  you  could  prob 
ably  arrange  to  see  your  boy  at  stated  intervals." 

To  see  his  boy  at  stated  intervals!  Ralph  wondered 
how  a  sane  man  could  sit  there,  looking  responsible 
and  efficient,  and  talk  such  rubbish.  .  .  As  he  got  up 
to  go  the  lawyer  detained  him  to  add:  "Of  course 
there's  no  immediate  cause  for  alarm.  It  will  take  time 
to  enforce  the  provision  of  the  Dakota  decree  in  New 
York,  and  till  it's  done  your  son  can't  be  taken  from 
you.  But  there's  sure  to  be  a  lot  of  nasty  talk  in  the 
papers;  and  you're  bound  to  lose  in  the  end." 

Ralph  thanked  him  and  left. 

He  sped  northward  to  the  Malibran,  where  he  learned 
that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Spragg  were  at  dinner.  He  sent  his 
name  down  to  the  subterranean  restaurant,  and  Mr. 
Spragg  presently  appeared  between  the  limp  portieres 
of  the  "Adam"  writing-room.  He  had  grown  older  and 
heavier,  as  if  illness  instead  of  health  had  put  more 
flesh  on  his  bones,  and  there  were  greyish  tints  in  the 
hollows  of  his  face. 

"What's  this  about  Paul?"  Ralph  exclaimed.  "My 
mother's  had  a  message  we  can't  make  out." 

Mr.  Spragg  sat  down,  with  the  effect  of  immersing 
his  spinal  column  in  the  depths  of  the  arm-chair  he 
selected.  He  crossed  his  legs,  and  swung  one  foot  to 
and  fro  in  its  high  wrinkled  boot  with  elastic  sides. 
[439] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Didn't  you  get  a  letter?"  he  asked. 

"From  my — from  Undine's  lawyers?  Yes."  Ralph 
held  it  out.  "It's  queer  reading.  She  hasn't  hitherto 
been  very  keen  to  have  Paul  with  her." 

Mr.  Spragg,  adjusting  his  glasses,  read  the  letter 
slowly,  restored  it  to  the  envelope  and  gave  it  back. 
"My  daughter  has  intimated  that  she  wishes  these 
gentlemen  to  act  for  her.  I  haven't  received  any  addi 
tional  instructions  from  her,"  he  said,  with  none  of  the 
curtness  of  tone  that  his  stiff  legal  vocabulary  implied. 

"But  the  first  communication  I  received  was  from 
you — at  least  from  Mrs.  Spragg." 

Mr.  Spragg  drew  his  beard  through  his  hand.  "The 
ladies  are  apt  to  be  a  trifle  hasty.  I  believe  Mrs.  Spragg 
had  a  letter  yesterday  instructing  her  to  select  a  reliable 
escort  for  Paul;  and  I  suppose  she  thought " 

"Oh,  this  is  all  too  preposterous!"  Ralph  burst  out, 
springing  from  his  seat.  "You  don't  for  a  moment 
imagine,  do  you — any  of  you — that  I'm  going  to  de 
liver  up  my  son  like  a  bale  of  goods  in  answer  to  any 
instructions  in  God's  world? — Oh,  yes,  I  know — I  let 
him  go — I  abandoned  my  right  to  him  .  .  .  but  I  didn't 
know  what  I  was  doing.  .  .  I  was  sick  with  grief  and 
misery.  My  people  were  awfully  broken  up  over  the 
whole  business,  and  I  wanted  to  spare  them.  I  wanted, 
above  all,  to  spare  my  boy  when  he  grew  up.  If  I'd 
contested  the  case  you  know  what  the  result  would 
have  been.  I  let  it  go  by  default — I  made  no  conditions 
[440] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

— all  I  wanted  was  to  keep  Paul,  and  never  to  let  him 
hear  a  word  against  his  mother!" 

Mr.  Spragg  received  this  passionate  appeal  in  a 
silence  that  implied  not  so  much  disdain  or  indiffer 
ence,  as  the  total  inability  to  deal  verbally  with  emo 
tional  crises.  At  length,  he  said,  a  slight  unsteadiness  in 
his  usually  calm  tones:  "I  presume  at  the  time  it  was 
optional  with  you  to  demand  Paul's  custody." 

"Oh,  yes — it  was  optional,"  Ralph  sneered. 

Mr.  Spragg  looked  at  him  compassionately.  "I'm 
sorry  you  didn't  do  it,"  he  said. 

XXXIII 

fTT^HE  upshot  of  Ralph's  visit  was  that  Mr,  Spragg, 
JL  after  considerable  deliberation,  agreed,  pending 
farther  negotiations  between  the  opposing  lawyers,  to 
undertake  that  no  attempt  should  be  made  to  re 
move  Paul  from  his  father's  custody.  Nevertheless,  he 
seemed  to  think  it  quite  natural  that  Undine,  on  the 
point  of  making  a  marriage  which  would  put  it  in  her 
power  to  give  her  child  a  suitable  home,  should  assert 
her  claim  on  him.  It  was  more  disconcerting  to  Ralph 
to  learn  that  Mrs.  Spragg,  for  once  departing  from  her 
attitude  of  passive  impartiality,  had  eagerly  abetted 
her  daughter's  move;  he  had  somehow  felt  that  Undine's 
desertion  of  the  child  had  established  a  kind  of  mute 
understanding  between  himself  and  his  mother-in-law. 
[  441  1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"I  thought  Mrs.  Spragg  would  know  there's  no 
earthly  use  trying  to  take  Paul  from  me,"  he  said 
with  a  desperate  awkwardness  of  entreaty,  and  Mr. 
Spragg  startled  him  by  replying:  "I  presume  his  grand 
ma  thinks  he'll  belong  to  her  more  if  we  keep  him  in 
the  family." 

Ralph,  abruptly  awakened  from  his  dream  of  recov 
ered  peace,  found  himself  confronted  on  every  side  by 
indifference  or  hostility:  it  was  as  though  the  June 
fields  in  which  his  boy  was  playing  had  suddenly  opened 
to  engulph  him.  Mrs.  Marvell's  fears  and  tremors  were 
almost  harder  to  bear  than  the  Spraggs'  antagonism; 
and  for  the  next  few  days  Ralph  wandered  about  miser 
ably,  dreading  some  fresh  communication  from  Undine's 
lawyers,  yet  racked  by  the  strain  of  hearing  nothing 
more  from  them.  Mr.  Spragg  had  agreed  to  cable  his 
daughter  asking  her  to  await  a  letter  before  enforcing 
her  demands;  but  on  the  fourth  day  after  Ralph's  visit 
to  the  Malibran  a  telephone  message  summoned  him 
to  his  father-in-law's  office. 

Half  an  hour  later  their  talk  was  over  and  he  stood 
once  more  on  the  landing  outside  Mr.  Spragg 's  door. 
Undine's  answer  had  come  and  Paul's  fate  was  sealed. 
His  mother  refused  to  give  him  up,  refused  to  await  the 
arrival  of  her  lawyer's  letter,  and  reiterated,  in  more 
peremptory  language,  her  demand  that  the  child  should 
be  sent  immediately  to  Paris  in  Mrs.  Heeny's  care. 

Mr.  Spragg,  in  face  of  Ralph's  entreaties,  remained 
F4421 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

pacific  but  remote.  It  was  evident  that,  though  he  had 
no  wish  to  quarrel  with  Ralph,  he  saw  no  reason  for 
resisting  Undine.  "  I  guess  she's  got  the  law  on  her  side," 
he  said;  and  in  response  to  Ralph's  passionate  remon 
strances  he  added  fatalistically:  "I  presume  you'll 
have  to  leave  the  matter  to  my  daughter." 

Ralph  had  gone  to  the  office  resolved  to  control  his 
temper  and  keep  on  the  watch  for  any  shred  of  informa 
tion  he  might  glean;  but  it  soon  became  clear  that  Mr. 
Spragg  knew  as  little  as  himself  of  Undine's  projects, 
or  of  the  stage  her  plans  had  reached.  All  she  had  ap 
parently  vouchsafed  her  parent  was  the  statement  that 
she  intended  to  re-marry,  and  the  command  to  send 
Paul  over;  and  Ralph  reflected  that  his  own  betrothal 
to  her  had  probably  been  announced  to  Mr.  Spragg  in 
the  same  curt  fashion. 

The  thought  brought  back  an  overwhelming  sense 
of  the  past.  One  by  one  the  details  of  that  incredible 
moment  revived,  and  he  felt  in  his  veins  the  glow  of 
rapture  with  which  he  had  first  approached  the  dingy 
threshold  he  was  now  leaving.  There  came  back  to 
him  with  peculiar  vividness  the  memory  of  his  rushing 
up  to  Mr.  Spragg's  office  to  consult  him  about  a  neck 
lace  for  Undine.  Ralph  recalled  the  incident  because 
his  eager  appeal  for  advice  had  been  received  by  Mr. 
Spragg  with  the  very  phrase  he  had  just  used:  "I  pre 
sume  you'll  have  to  leave  the  matter  to  my  daughter." 

Ralph  saw  him  slouching  in  his  chair,  swung  sideways 
[443] 


THE   CUSTOM   OF  THE   COUNTRY 

from  the  untidy  desk,  his  legs  stretched  out,  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  his  jaws  engaged  on  the  phantom  tooth 
pick;  and,  in  a  corner  of  the  office,  the  figure  of  a 
middle-sized  red-faced  young  man  who  seemed  to  have 
been  interrupted  in  the  act  of  saying  something  dis 
agreeable. 

"Why,  it  must  have  been  then  that  I  first  saw 
Moffatt,"  Ralph  reflected;  and  the  thought  suggested 
the  memory  of  other,  subsequent  meetings  in  the  same 
building,  and  of  frequent  ascents  to  Moffatt's  office 
during  the  ardent  weeks  of  their  mysterious  and  remu 
nerative  "deal." 

Ralph  wondered  if  Moffatt's  office  were  still  in  the 
Ararat;  and  on  the  way  out  he  paused  before  the  black 
tablet  affixed  to  the  wall  of  the  vestibule  and  sought 
and  found  the  name  in  its  familiar  place. 

The  next  moment  he  was  again  absorbed  in  his 
own  cares.  Now  that  he  had  learned  the  imminence 
of  Paul's  danger,  and  the  futility  of  pleading  for  delay, 
a  thousand  fantastic  projects  were  contending  in  his 
head.  To  get  the  boy  away — that  seemed  the  first 
thing  to  do:  to  put  him  out  of  reach,  and  then  invoke 
the  law,  get  the  case  re-opened,  and  carry  the  fight 
from  court  to  court  till  his  rights  should  be  recognized. 
It  would  cost  a  lot  of  money — well,  the  money  would 
have  to  be  found.  The  first  step  was  to  secure  the  boy's 
temporary  safety;  after  that,  the  question  of  ways  and 
means  would  have  to  be  considered.  .  .  Had  there  ever 
[444] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

been  a  time,  Ralph  wondered,  when  that  question 
hadn't  been  at  the  root  of  all  the  others? 

He  had  promised  to  let  Clare  Van  Degen  know  the 
result  of  his  visit,  and  half  an  hour  later  he  was  in 
her  drawing-room.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  entered 
it  since  his  divorce;  but  Van  Degen  was  tarpon-fishing 
in  California — and  besides,  he  had  to  see  Clare.  His 
one  relief  was  in  talking  to  her,  in  feverishly  turning 
over  with  her  every  possibility  of  delay  and  obstruc 
tion;  and  he  marvelled  at  the  intelligence  and  energy 
she  brought  to  the  discussion  of  these  questions.  It 
was  as  if  she  had  never  before  felt  strongly  enough 
about  anything  to  put  her  heart  or  her  brains  into  it; 
but  now  everything  in  her  was  at  work  for  him. 

She  listened  intently  to  what  he  told  her;  then  she 
said:  "You  tell  me  it  will  cost  a  great  deal;  but  why 
take  it  to  the  courts  at  all?  Why  not  give  the  money 
to  Undine  instead  of  to  your  lawyers?" 

Ralph  looked  at  her  in  surprise,  and  she  continued: 
"Why  do  you  suppose  she's  suddenly  made  up  her 
mind  she  must  have  Paul?" 

"That's  comprehensible  enough  to  any  one  who 
knows  her.  She  wants  him  because  he'll  give  her  the 
appearance  of  respectability.  Having  him  with  her  will 
prove,  as  no  mere  assertions  can,  that  all  the  rights  are 
on  her  side  and  the  *  wrongs'  on  mine." 

Clare  considered.  "Yes;  that's  the  obvious  answer. 
But  shall  I  tell  you  what  I  think,  my  dear?  You  and  I 
[4451 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

are  both  completely  out-of-date.  I  don't  believe  Undine 
cares  a  straw  for  'the  appearance  of  respectability.' 
What  she  wants  is  the  money  for  her  annulment." 

Ralph  uttered  an  incredulous  exclamation.  "But 
don't  you  see?"  she  hurried  on.  "It's  her  only  hope 
— her  last  chance.  She's  much  too  clever  to  burden 
herself  with  the  child  merely  to  annoy  you.  What  she 
wants  is  to  make  you  buy  him  back  from  her."  She 
stood  up  and  came  to  him  with  outstretched  hands. 
"Perhaps  I  can  be  of  use  to  you  at  last!  " 

"You?"  He  summoned  up  a  haggard  smile.  "As  if 
you  weren't  always — letting  me  load  you  with  all  my 
bothers!" 

"Oh,  if  only  I've  hit  on  the  way  out  of  this  one! 
Then  there  wouldn't  be  any  others  left!"  Her  eyes  fol 
lowed  him  intently  as  he  turned  away  to  the  window 
and  stood  staring  down  at  the  sultry  prospect  of  Fifth 
Avenue.  As  he  turned  over  her  conjecture  its  probabil 
ity  became  more  and  more  apparent.  It  put  into  logical 
relation  all  the  incoherencies  of  Undine's  recent  con 
duct,  completed  and  defined  her  anew  as  if  a  sharp  line 
had  been  drawn  about  her  fading  image. 

"If  it's  that,  I  shall  soon  know,"  he  said,  turning 
back  into  the  room.  His  course  had  instantly  become 
plain.  He  had  only  to  resist  and  Undine  would  have  to 
show  her  hand.  Simultaneously  with  this  thought  there 
sprang  up  in  his  mind  the  remembrance  of  the  autumn 
afternoon  in  Paris  when  he  had  come  home  and  found 
[446] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

her,  among  her  half-packed  finery,  desperately  bewail 
ing  her  coming  motherhood. 

Clare's  touch  was  on  his  arm.  "If  I'm  right — you 
will  let  me  help?" 

He  laid  his  hand  on  hers  without  speaking,  and  she 
went  on: 

"It  will  take  a  lot  of  money:  all  these  law-suits  do. 
Besides,  she'd  be  ashamed  to  sell  him  cheap.  You  must 
be  ready  to  give  her  anything  she  wants.  And  I've  got 
a  lot  saved  up — money  of  my  own,  I  mean.  .  ." 

"Your  own?"  As  he  looked  at  her  the  rare  blush 
rose  under  her  brown  skin. 

"My  very  own.  Why  shouldn't  you  believe  me?  I've 
been  hoarding  up  my  scrap  of  an  income  for  years, 
thinking  that  some  day  I'd  find  I  couldn't  stand  this 
any  longer.  .  ."  Her  gesture  embraced  their  sumptuous 
setting.  "But  now  I  know  I  shall  never  budge.  There 
are  the  children;  and  besides,  things  are  easier  for  me 
since "  she  paused,  embarrassed. 

"Yes,  yes;  I  know."  He  felt  like  completing  her 
phrase:  "Since  my  wife  has  furnished  you  with  the 

means  of  putting  pressure  on  your  husband "  but 

he  simply  repeated:  "I  know." 

"And  you  will  let  me  help?" 

"Oh,  we  must  get  at  the  facts  first."  He  caught  her 
hands  in  his  with  sudden  energy.  "As  you  say,  when 
Paul's  safe  there  won't  be  another  bother  left!" 


447 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


XXXIV 

THE  means  of  raising  the  requisite  amount  of 
money  became,  during  the  next  few  weeks,  the 
anxious  theme  of  all  Ralph's  thoughts.  His  lawyers' 
enquiries  soon  brought  the  confirmation  of  Clare's  sur 
mise,  and  it  became  clear  that — for  reasons  swathed  in 
all  the  ingenuities  of  legal  verbiage — Undine  might, 
in  return  for  a  substantial  consideration,  be  prevailed 
on  to  admit  that  it  was  for  her  son's  advantage  to  re 
main  with  his  father. 

The  day  this  admission  was  communicated  to  Ralph 
his  first  impulse  was  to  carry  the  news  to  his  cousin. 
His  mood  was  one  of  pure  exaltation;  he  seemed  to 
be  hugging  his  boy  to  him  as  he  walked.  Paul  and  he 
were  to  belong  to  each  other  forever:  no  mysterious 
threat  of  separation  could  ever  menace  them  again! 
He  had  the  blissful  sense  of  relief  that  the  child  himself 
might  have  had  on  waking  out  of  a  frightened  dream 
and  finding  the  jolly  daylight  in  his  room. 

Clare  at  once  renewed  her  entreaty  to  be  allowed 
to  aid  in  ransoming  her  little  cousin,  but  Ralph  tried 
to  put  her  off  by  explaining  that  he  meant  to  "look 
about." 

"Look  where?  In  the  Dagonet  coffers?  Oh,  Ralph, 
what's  the  use  of  pretending?  Tell  me  what  you've 
got  to  give  her."  It  was  amazing  how  his  cousin  sud- 
[448] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

denly  dominated  him.  But  as  yet  he  couldn't  go  into 
the  details  of  the  bargain.  That  the  reckoning  between 
himself  and  Undine  should  be  settled  in  dollars  and 
cents  seemed  the  last  bitterest  satire  on  his  dreams: 
he  felt  himself  miserably  diminished  by  the  smallness 
of  what  had  filled  his  world. 

Nevertheless,  the  looking  about  had  to  be  done; 
and  a  day  came  when  he  found  himself  once  more  at 
the  door  of  Elmer  Moffatt's  office.  His  thoughts  had 
been  drawn  back  to  Moffatt  by  the  insistence  with 
which  the  latter's  name  had  lately  been  put  forward 
by  the  press  in  connection  with  a  revival  of  the  Ararat 
investigation.  Moffatt,  it  appeared,  had  been  regarded 
as  one  of  the  most  valuable  witnesses  for  the  State; 
his  return  from  Europe  had  been  anxiously  awaited, 
his  unreadiness  to  testify  caustically  criticized;  then 
at  last  he  had  arrived,  had  gone  on  to  Washington — 
and  had  apparently  had  nothing  to  tell. 

Ralph  was  too  deep  in  his  own  troubles  to  waste  any 
wonder  over  this  anticlimax;  but  the  frequent  appear 
ance  of  Moffatt's  name  in  the  morning  papers  acted 
as  an  unconscious  suggestion.  Besides,  to  whom  else 
could  he  look  for  help?  The  sum  his  wife  demanded 
could  be  acquired  only  by  "a  quick  turn,"  and  the 
fact  that  Ralph  had  once  rendered  the  same  kind  of 
service  to  Moffatt  made  it  natural  to  appeal  to  him 
now.  The  market,  moreover,  happened  to  be  booming, 
and  it  seemed  not  unlikely  that  so  experienced  a  specu 
lator  might  have  a  "good  thing"  up  his  sleeve. 
[449] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Moffatt's  office  had  been  transformed  since  Ralph's 
last  visit.  Paint,  varnish  and  brass  railings  gave  an 
air  of  opulence  to  the  outer  precincts,  and  the  inner 
room,  with  its  mahogany  bookcases  containing  mo 
rocco-bound  "sets"  and  its  wide  blue  leather  arm 
chairs,  lacked  only  a  palm  or  two  to  resemble  the  lounge 
of  a  fashionable  hotel.  Moffatt  himself,  as  he  came 
forward,  gave  Ralph  the  impression  of  having  been  done 
over  by  the  same  hand:  he  was  smoother,  broader, 
more  supremely  tailored,  and  his  whole  person  exhaled 
the  faintest  whiff  of  an  expensive  scent. 

He  installed  his  visitor  in  one  of  the  blue  arm-chairs, 
and  sitting  opposite,  an  elbow  on  his  impressive  "Wash 
ington"  desk,  listened  attentively  while  Ralph  made 
his  request. 

"You  want  to  be  put  onto  something  good  in  a 
damned  hurry?"  Moffatt  twisted  his  moustache  be 
tween  two  plump  square-tipped  fingers  with  a  little 
black  growth  on  their  lower  joints.  "I  don't  suppose," 
he  remarked,  "there's  a  sane  man  between  here  and 
San  Francisco  who  isn't  consumed  by  that  yearning." 

Having  permitted  himself  this  pleasantry  he  passed 
on  to  business.  "Yes — it's  a  first-rate  time  to  buy: 
no  doubt  of  that.  But  you  say  you  want  to  make  a 
quick  turn-over?  Heard  of  a  soft  thing  that  won't  wait, 
I  presume?  That's  apt  to  be  the  way  with  soft  things 
— all  kinds  of  'em.  There's  always  other  fellows  after 
them."  Moffatt's  smile  was  playful.  "Well,  I'd  go 
considerably  out  of  my  way  to  do  you  a  good  turn, 
[450] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

because  you  did  me  one  when  I  needed  it  mighty  bad. 
'In  youth  you  sheltered  me.'  Yes,  sir,  that's  the  kind 
I  am."  He  stood  up,  sauntered  to  the  other  side  of  the 
room,  and  took  a  small  object  from  the  top  of  the 
bookcase. 

"Fond  of  these  pink  crystals?"  He  held  the  oriental 
toy  against  the  light.  "Oh,  I  ain't  a  judge — but  now 
and  then  I  like  to  pick  up  a  pretty  thing."  Ralph 
noticed  that  his  eyes  caressed  it. 

"Well — now  let's  talk.  You  say  you've  got  to  have 
the  funds  for  your — your  investment  within  three 
weeks.  That's  quick  work.  And  you  want  a  hundred 
thousand.  Can  you  put  up  fifty?" 

Ralph  had  been  prepared  for  the  question,  but  when 
it  came  he  felt  a  moment's  tremor.  He  knew  he  could 
count  on  half  the  amount  from  his  grandfather;  could 
possibly  ask  Fairford  for  a  small  additional  loan — 
but  what  of  the  rest?  Well,  there  was  Clare.  He  had 
always  known  there  would  be  no  other  way.  And  after 
all,  the  money  was  Clare's — it  was  Dagonet  money. 
At  least  she  said  it  was.  All  the  misery  of  his  predica 
ment  was  distilled  into  the  short  silence  that  preceded 
his  answer:  "Yes — I  think  so." 

"Well,  I  guess  I  can  double  it  for  you."  Moffatt 
spoke  with  an  air  of  Olympian  modesty.  "Anyhow,  I'll 
try.  Only  don't  tell  the  other  girls!" 

He  proceeded  to  develop  his  plan  to  ears  which  Ralph 
tried  to  make  alert  and  attentive,  but  in  which  per- 
[451] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

petually,  through  the  intricate  concert  of  facts  and 
figures,  there  broke  the  shout  of  a  small  boy  racing 
across  a  suburban  lawn.  "When  I  pick  him  up  to 
night  he'll  be  mine  for  good!"  Ralph  thought  as  Mof- 
fatt  summed  up:  "There's  the  whole  scheme  in  a  nut 
shell;  but  you'd  better  think  it  over.  I  don't  want  to 
let  you  in  for  anything  you  ain't  quite  sure  about." 

"Oh,  if  you're  sure "  Ralph  was  already  calcu 
lating  the  time  it  would  take  to  dash  up  to  Clare  Van 
Degen's  on  his  way  to  catch  the  train  for  the  Fair- 
fords'. 

His  impatience  made  it  hard  to  pay  due  regard  to 
Moffatt's  parting  civilities.  "Glad  to  have  seen  you," 
he  heard  the  latter  assuring  him  with  a  final  hand- 
grasp.  "Wish  you'd  dine  with  me  some  evening  at  my 
club";  and,  as  Ralph  murmured  a  vague  acceptance: 
"How's  that  boy  of  yours,  by  the  way?"  Moffatt  con 
tinued.  "He  was  a  stunning  chap  last  time  I  saw  him. 
— Excuse  me  if  I've  put  my  foot  in  it;  but  I  under 
stood  you  kept  him  with  you  .  .  .  ?  Yes :  that's  what  I 
thought.  .  .  Well,  so  long." 

Clare's  inner  sitting-room  was  empty;  but  the  ser 
vant,  presently  returning,  led  Ralph  into  the  gilded 
and  tapestried  wilderness  where  she  occasionally  chose 
to  receive  her  visitors.  There,  under  Popple's  effigy  of 
herself,  she  sat,  small  and  alone,  on  a  monumental  sofa 
behind  a  tea-table  laden  with  gold  plate;  while  from 
[452] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

his  lofty  frame,  on  the  opposite  wall  Van  Degen,  por 
trayed  by  a  "powerful"  artist,  cast  on  her  the  satisfied 
eye  of  proprietorship. 

Ralph,  swept  forward  on  the  blast  of  his  excitement, 
felt  as  in  a  dream  the  frivolous  perversity  of  her  re 
ceiving  him  in  such  a  setting  instead  of  in  their  usual 
quiet  corner;  but  there  was  no  room  in  his  mind  for 
anything  but  the  cry  that  broke  from  him:  "I  believe 
I've  done  it!" 

He  sat  down  and  explained  to  her  by  what  means, 
trying,  as  best  he  could,  to  restate  the  particulars  of 
Moffatt's  deal;  and  her  manifest  ignorance  of  business 
methods  had  the  effect  of  making  his  vagueness  appear 
less  vague. 

"Anyhow,  he  seems  to  be  sure  it's  a  safe  thing.  I 
understand  he's  in  with  Rolliver  now,  and  Rolliver 
practically  controls  Apex.  This  is  some  kind  of  a  scheme 
to  buy  up  all  the  works  of  public  utility  at  Apex. 
They're  practically  sure  of  their  charter,  and  Moffatt 
tells  me  I  can  count  on  doubling  my  investment  with 
in  a  few  weeks.  Of  course  I'll  go  into  the  details  if  you 
like " 

"Oh,  no;  you've  made  it  all  so  clear  to  me!"  She 
really  made  him  feel  he  had.  "And  besides,  what  on 
earth  does  it  matter?  The  great  thing  is  that  it's  done." 
She  lifted  her  sparkling  eyes.  "And  now — my  share — 
you  haven't  told  me.  .  ." 

He  explained  that  Mr.  Dagonet,  to  whom  he  had 
[453] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

already  named  the  amount  demanded,  had  at  once 
promised  him  twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  to  be 
eventually  deducted  from  his  share  of  the  estate. 
His  mother  had  something  put  by  that  she  insisted  on 
contributing;  and  Henley  Fairford,  of  his  own  accord, 
had  come  forward  with  ten  thousand:  it  was  awfully 
decent  of  Henley.  .  . 

"Even  Henley!"  Clare  sighed.  "Then  I'm  the  only 
one  left  out?" 

Ralph  felt  the  colour  in  his  face.  "Well,  you  see,  I 
shall  need  as  much  as  fifty " 

Her  hands  flew  together  joyfully.  "But  then  you've 
got  to  let  me  help !  Oh,  I'm  so  glad — so  glad!  I've  twenty 
thousand  waiting." 

He  looked  about  the  room,  checked  anew  by  all  its 
oppressive  implications.  "You're  a  darling  ...  but  I 
couldn't  take  it." 

"I've  told  you  it's  mine,  every  penny  of  it!" 

"Yes;   but  supposing  things  went  wrong?" 

"Nothing  can — if  you'll  only  take  it.  .  ." 

"I  may  lose  it " 

"/  sha'n't,  if  I've  given  it  to  you!"  Her  look  followed 
his  about  the  room  and  then  came  back  to  him.  "  Can't 
you  imagine  all  it  will  make  up  for?" 

The  rapture  of  the  cry  caught  him  up  with   it.    Ah, 
yes,  he  could  imagine  it  all !  He  stooped  his  head  above 
her  hands.  "I  accept,"  he  said;    and  they  stood  and 
looked  at  each  other  like  radiant  children. 
[4541 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

She  followed  him  to  the  door,  and  as  he  turned  to 
leave  he  broke  into  a  laugh.  "It's  queer,  though,  its 
happening  in  this  room!" 

She  was  close  beside  him,  her  hand  on  the  heavy 
tapestry  curtaining  the  door;  and  her  glance  shot  past 
him  to  her  husband's  portrait.  Ralph  caught  the  look, 
and  a  flood  of  old  tendernesses  and  hates  welled  up  in 
him.  He  drew  her  under  the  portrait  and  kissed  her 
vehemently. 

XXXV 

WITHIN  forty-eight  hours  Ralph's  money  was 
in  Moffatt's  hands,  and  the  interval  of  sus 
pense  had  begun. 

The  transaction  over,  he  felt  the  deceptive  buoy 
ancy  that  follows  on  periods  of  painful  indecision.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  now  at  last  life  had  freed  him  from 
all  trammelling  delusions,  leaving  him  only  the  best 
thing  in  its  gift — his  boy. 

The  things  he  meant  Paul  to  do  and  to  be  filled  his 
fancy  with  happy  pictures.  The  child  was  growing 
more  and  more  interesting — throwing  out  countless 
tendrils  of  feeling  and  perception  that  delighted  Ralph 
but  preoccupied  the  watchful  Laura. 

"He's  going  to  be  exactly  like  you,  Ralph —      "  she 
paused  and  then  risked  it:  "For  his  own  sake,  I  wish 
there  were  just  a  drop  or  two  of  Spragg  in  him." 
[4551 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Ralph  laughed,  understanding  her.  "Oh,  the  plod 
ding  citizen  I've  become  will  keep  him  from  taking 
after  the  lyric  idiot  who  begot  him.  Paul  and  I,  between 
us,  are  going  to  turn  out  something  first-rate." 

His  book  too  was  spreading  and  throwing  out  ten 
drils,  and  he  worked  at  it  in  the  white  heat  of  energy 
which  his  factitious  exhilaration  produced.  For  a  few 
weeks  everything  he  did  and  said  seemed  as  easy  and 
unconditioned  as  the  actions  in  a  dream. 

Clare  Van  Degen,  in  the  light  of  this  mood,  became 
again  the  comrade  of  his  boyhood.  He  did  not  see  her 
often,  for  she  had  gone  down  to  the  country  with  her 
children,  but  they  communicated  daily  by  letter  or 
telephone,  and  now  and  then  she  came  over  to  the 
Fairfords'  for  a  night.  There  they  renewed  the  long 
rambles  of  their  youth,  and  once  more  the  summer 
fields  and  woods  seemed  full  of  magic  presences.  Clare 
was  no  more  intelligent,  she  followed  him  no  farther  in 
his  flights;  but  some  of  the  qualities  that  had  become 
most  precious  to  him  were  as  native  to  her  as  its  per 
fume  to  a  flower.  So,  through  the  long  June  afternoons, 
they  ranged  together  over  many  themes;  and  if  her 
answers  sometimes  missed  the  mark  it  did  not  matter, 
because  her  silences  never  did. 

Meanwhile  Ralph,  from  various  sources,  continued 
to  pick  up  a  good  deal  of  more  or  less  contradictory  in 
formation  about  Elmer  Moffatt.  It  seemed  to  be  gen 
erally  understood  that  Moffatt  had  come  back  from 
[456] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Europe  with  the  intention  of  testifying  in  the  Ararat 
investigation,  and  that  his  former  patron,  the  great 
Harmon  B.  Driscoll,  had  managed  to  silence  him; 
and  it  was  implied  that  the  price  of  this  silence,  which 
was  set  at  a  considerable  figure,  had  been  turned  to 
account  in  a  series  of  speculations  likely  to  lift  Moffatt 
to  permanent  eminence  among  the  rulers  of  Wall 
Street.  The  stories  as  to  his  latest  achievement,  and  the 
theories  as  to  the  man  himself,  varied  with  the  visual 
angle  of  each  reporter:  and  whenever  any  attempt  was 
made  to  focus  his  hard  sharp  personality  some  guardian 
divinity  seemed  to  throw  a  veil  of  mystery  over  him. 
His  detractors,  however,  were  the  first  to  own  that 
there  was  "something  about  him";  it  was  felt  that  he 
had  passed  beyond  the  meteoric  stage,  and  the  busi 
ness  world  was  unanimous  in  recognizing  that  he  had 
"come  to  stay."  A  dawning  sense  of  his  stability  was 
even  beginning  to  make  itself  felt  in  Fifth  Avenue. 
It  was  said  that  he  had  bought  a  house  in  Seventy- 
second  Street,  then  that  he  meant  to  build  near  the 
Park;  one  or  two  people  (always  "taken  by  a  friend") 
had  been  to  his  flat  in  the  Pactolus,  to  see  his  Chinese 
porcelains  and  Persian  rugs;  now  and  then  he  had  a 
few  important  men  to  dine  at  a  Fifth  Avenue  restau 
rant;  his  name  began  to  appear  in  philanthropic  reports 
and  on  municipal  committees  (there  were  even  rumours 
of  its  having  been  put  up  at  a  well-known  club);  and 
the  rector  of  a  wealthy  parish,  who  was  raising  funds 
[4571 


THE  CUSTOM  OP  THE  COUNTRY 

for  a  chantry,  was  known  to  have  met  him  at  dinner 
and  to  have  stated  afterward  that  "the  man  was  not 
wholly  a  materialist" 

All  these  converging  proofs  of  MotTatt's  solidity 
strengthened  Ralph's  faith  in  his  venture.  He  remem 
bered  with  what  astuteness  and  authority  MotTatt  had 
conducted  their  real  estate  transaction — how  far  off 
and  unreal  it  all  seemed! — and  awaited  events  with  the 
passive  faith  of  a  sufferer  in  the  hands  of  a  skilful 
surgeon. 

The  days  moved  on  towa.nl  the  end  of  June,  and 
each  morning  Ralph  opened  his  newspaper  with  a 
keener  thrill  of  expectation.  Any  day  now  he  might 
read  of  the  granting  of  the  Apex  charter:  MotTatt  had 
assured  him  it  would  "go  through"  before  the  close  of 
the  month.  But  the  announcement  did  not  appear,  and 
after  what  seemed  to  Ralph  a  decent  lapse  of  time  he 
telephoned  to  ask  for  news.  Moffatt  was  away,  and 
when  he  came  back  a  few  days  later  he  answered 
Ralph's  enquiries  evasively,  with  an  edge  of  irritation 
in  his  voice.  The  same  day  Ralph  received  a  letter 
from  his  lawyer,  who  had  been  reminded  by  Mrs. 
Marvell's  representatives  that  the  latest  date  agreed 
on  for  the  execution  of  the  financial  agreement  was  the 
end  of  the  following  week. 

Ralph,  alarmed,  betook  himself  at  once  to  the 
Ararat,  and  his  first  glimpse  of  Moffatt's  round  com 
mon  face  and  fastidiously  dressed  person  gave  him  an 
[458] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

immediate  sense  of  reassurance.  He  felt  that  under  the 
circle  of  baldness  on  top  of  that  carefully  brushed  head 
lay  the  solution  of  every  monetary  problem  that  could 
beset  the  soul  of  man.  Moffatt's  voice  had  recovered  its 
usual  cordial  note,  and  the  warmth  of  his  welcome  dis 
pelled  Ralph's  last  apprehension. 

"Why,  yes,  everything's  going  along  first-rate.  They 
thought  they'd  hung  us  up  last  week — but  they  haven't. 
There  may  be  another  week's  delay;  but  we  ought  to 
be  opening  a  bottle  of  wine  on  it  by  the  Fourth." 

An  office-boy  came  in  with  a  name  on  a  slip  of  paper, 
and  Moffatt  looked  at  his  watch  and  held  out  a  hearty 
hand.  "Glad  you  came.  Of  course  I'll  keep  you  posted. 
. .  No,  this  way.  .  .  Look  in  again  ..."  and  he  steered 
Ralph  out  by  another  door. 

July  came,  and  passed  into  its  second  week.  Ralph's 
lawyer  had  obtained  a  postponement  from  the  other 
side,  but  Undine's  representatives  had  given  him  to 
understand  that  the  transaction  must  be  closed  before 
the  first  of  August.  Ralph  telephoned  once  or  twice  to 
Moffatt,  receiving  genially-worded  assurances  that 
everything  was  "going  their  way";  but  he  felt  a  cer 
tain  embarrassment  in  returning  again  to  the  office, 
and  let  himself  drift  through  the  days  in  a  state  of 
hungry  apprehension.  Finally  one  afternoon  Henley 
Fairford,  coming  back  from  town  (which  Ralph  had 
left  in  the  morning  to  join  his  boy  over  Sunday), 
brought  word  that  the  Apex  consolidation  scheme  had 
[4591 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

failed  to  get  its  charter.  It  was  useless  to  attempt  to 
reach  Moffatt  on  Sunday,  and  Ralph  wore  on  as  he 
could  through  the  succeeding  twenty-four  hours.  Clare 
Van  Degen  had  come  down  to  stay  with  her  youngest 
boy,  and  in  the  afternoon  she  and  Ralph  took  the  two 
children  for  a  sail.  A  light  breeze  brightened  the  waters 
of  the  Sound,  and  they  ran  down  the  shore  before  it 
and  then  tacked  out  toward  the  sunset,  coming  back 
at  last,  under  a  failing  breeze,  as  the  summer  sky  passed 
from  blue  to  a  translucid  green  and  then  into  the  ac 
cumulating  greys  of  twilight. 

As  they  left  the  landing  and  walked  up  behind  the 
children  across  the  darkening  lawn,  a  sense  of  security 
descended  again  on  Ralph.  He  could  not  believe  that 
such  a  scene  and  such  a  mood  could  be  the  disguise  of 
any  impending  evil,  and  all  his  doubts  and  anxieties 
fell  away  from  him. 

The  next  morning,  he  and  Clare  travelled  up  to 
town  together,  and  at  the  station  he  put  her  in  the 
motor  which  was  to  take  her  to  Long  Island,  and  has 
tened  down  to  Moffatt's  office.  When  he  arrived  he 
was  told  that  Moffatt  was  "engaged,"  and  he  had  to 
wait  for  nearly  half  an  hour  in  the  outer  office,  where, 
to  the  steady  click  of  the  type-writer  and  the  spasmodic 
buzzing  of  the  telephone,  his  thoughts  again  began 
their  restless  circlings.  Finally  the  inner  door  opened, 
and  he  found  himself  in  the  sanctuary.  Moffatt  was 
seated  behind  his  desk,  examining  another  little  crystal 
[460] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

vase  somewhat  like  the  one  he  had  shown  Ralph  a  few 
weeks  earlier.  As  his  visitor  entered,  he  held  it  up 
against  the  light,  revealing  on  its  dewy  sides  an  in 
cised  design  as  frail  as  the  shadow  of  grass-blades  on 
water. 

"Ain't  she  a  peach?"  He  put  the  toy  down  and 
reached  across  the  desk  to  shake  hands.  "Well,  well," 
he  went  on,  leaning  back  in  his  chair,  and  pushing  out 
his  lower  lip  in  a  half -comic  pout,  "they've  got  us  in 
the  neck  this  time  and  no  mistake.  Seen  this  morning's 
Radiator  ?  I  don't  know  how  the  thing  leaked  out — 
but  the  reformers  somehow  got  a  smell  of  the  scheme, 
and  whenever  they  get  swishing  round  something's 
bound  to  get  spilt." 

He  talked  gaily,  genially,  in  his  roundest  tones  and 
with  his  easiest  gestures;  never  had  he  conveyed  a 
completer  sense  of  unhurried  power;  but  Ralph  no 
ticed  for  the  first  time  the  crow's-feet  about  his  eyes, 
and  the  sharpness  of  the  contrast  between  the  white 
of  his  forehead  and  the  redness  of  the  fold  of  neck 
above  his  collar. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  it's  not  going  through?" 
"Not  this  time,  anyhow.  We're  high  and  dry." 
Something  seemed  to  snap  in  Ralph's  head,  and  he 
sat  down  in  the  nearest  chair.  "Has  the  common  stock 
dropped  a  lot?" 

"Well,  you've  got  to  lean  over  to  see  it."  Moffatt 
pressed  his  finger-tips  together  and  added  thought- 
[4611 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

fully:   "But  it's  there  all  right.  We're  bound  to  get  our 
charter  in  the  end." 

"What  do  you  call  the  end?" 

"Oh,  before  the  Day  of  Judgment,  sure:  next  year, 
I  guess." 

"Next  year?"  Ralph  flushed.  "What  earthly  good 
will  that  do  me?" 

"I  don't  say  it's  as  pleasant  as  driving  your  best 
girl  home  by  moonlight.  But  that's  how  it  is.  And  the 
stuff's  safe  enough  any  way — I've  told  you  that  right 
along." 

"But  you've  told  me  all  along  I  could  count  on  a 
rise  before  August.  You  knew  I  had  to  have  the  money 
now." 

"I  knew  you  wanted  to  have  the  money  now;  and 
so  did  I,  and  several  of  my  friends.  I  put  you  onto  it 
because  it  was  the  only  thing  in  sight  likely  to  give  you 
the  return  you  wanted." 

"You  ought  at  least  to  have  warned  me  of  the  risk!" 

"Risk?  I  don't  call  it  much  of  a  risk  to  lie  back  in 
your  chair  and  wait  another  few  months  for  fifty  thou 
sand  to  drop  into  your  lap.  I  tell  you  the  thing's  as  safe 
as  a  bank." 

"How  do  I  know  it  is?  You've  misled  me  about  it 
from  the  first." 

Moffatt's  face  grew  dark  red  to  the  forehead:  for 
the  first  time  in  their  acquaintance  Ralph  saw  him  on 
the  verge  of  anger. 

[462] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Well,  if  you  get  stuck  so  do  I.  I'm  in  it  a  good  deal 
deeper  than  you.  That's  about  the  best  guarantee  I 
can  give;  unless  you  won't  take  my  word  for  that 
either."  To  control  himself  Moffatt  spoke  with  extreme 
deliberation,  separating  his  syllables  like  a  machine 
cutting  something  into  even  lengths. 

Ralph  listened  through  a  cloud  of  confusion;  but 
he  saw  the  madness  of  offending  Moffatt,  and  tried  to 
take  a  more  conciliatory  tone.  "Of  course  I  take  your 
word  for  it.  But  I  can't — I  simply  can't  afford  to 
lose..." 

"You  ain't  going  to  lose:  I  don't  believe  you'll  even 
have  to  put  up  any  margin.  It's  there  safe  enough,  I 
tell  you.  .  ." 

"Yes,  yes;  I  understand.  I'm  sure  you  wouldn't 
have  advised  me —  "  Ralph's  tongue  seemed  swollen, 
and  he  had  difficulty  in  bringing  out  the  words.  "Only, 
you  see — I  can't  wait;  it's  not  possible;  and  I  want  to 
know  if  there  isn't  a  way— 

Moffatt  looked  at  him  with  a  sort  of  resigned  com 
passion,  as  a  doctor  looks  at  a  despairing  mother  who 
will  not  understand  what  he  has  tried  to  imply  without 
uttering  the  word  she  dreads.  Ralph  understood  the 
look,  but  hurried  on. 

"You'll  think  I'm  mad,  or  an  ass,  to  talk  like  this; 
but  the  fact  is,  I  must  have  the  money."  He  waited 
and  drew  a  hard  breath.  "I  must  have  it:  that's  all. 

Perhaps  I'd  better  tell  you " 

[463] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Moffatt,  who  had  risen,  as  if  assuming  that  the  inter 
view  was  over,  sat  down  again  and  turned  an  attentive 
look  on  him.  "Go  ahead,"  he  said,  more  humanly  than 
he  had  hitherto  spoken. 

"My  boy  .  .  .  you  spoke  of  him  the  other  day  .  .  . 
I'm  awfully  fond  of  him "  Ralph  broke  off,  de 
terred  by  the  impossibility  of  confiding  his  feeling  for 
Paul  to  this  coarse-grained  man  with  whom  he  hadn't 
a  sentiment  in  common. 

Moffatt  was  still  looking  at  him.  "I  should  say  you 
would  be!  He's  as  smart  a  little  chap  as  I  ever  saw; 
and  I  guess  he's  the  kind  that  gets  better  every  day." 

Ralph  had  collected  himself,  and  went  on  with 
sudden  resolution:  "Well,  you  see — when  my  wife  and 
I  separated,  I  never  dreamed  she'd  want  the  boy:  the 
question  never  came  up.  If  it  had,  of  course — but  she'd 
left  him  with  me  when  she  went  away  two  years  before, 
and  at  the  time  of  the  divorce  I  was  a  fool.  .  .  I  didn't 
take  the  proper  steps.  .  ." 

"You  mean  she's  got  sole  custody?" 

Ralph  made  a  sign  of  assent,  and  Moffatt  pondered. 
"That's  bad— bad." 

"And  now  I  understand  she's  going  to  marry  again 
— and  of  course  I  can't  give  up  my  son." 

"She  wants  you  to,  eh?" 

Ralph  again  assented. 

Moffatt  swung  his  chair  about  and  leaned  back  in 
it,  stretching  out  his  plump  legs  and  contemplating 
[464] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

the  tips  of  his  varnished  boots.  He  hummed  a  low  tune 
behind  inscrutable  lips. 

"That's  what  you  want  the  money  for?"  he  finally 
raised  his  head  to  ask. 

The  word  came  out  of  the  depths  of  Ralph's  anguish: 
"Yes." 

"And  why  you  want  it  in  such  a  hurry.  I  see." 
Moffatt  reverted  to  the  study  of  his  boots.  "It's  a  lot 
of  money." 

"Yes.  That's  the  difficulty.  And  I ...  she  ..." 

Ralph's  tongue  was  again  too  thick  for  his  mouth. 
"I'm  afraid  she  won't  wait ...  or  take  less.  .  ." 

Moffatt,  abandoning  the  boots,  was  scrutinizing  him 
through  half-shut  lids.  "No,"  he  said  slowly,  "I  don't 
believe  Undine  Spragg'll  take  a  single  cent  less." 

Ralph  felt  himself  whiten.  Was  it  insolence  or  igno 
rance  that  had  prompted  Moffatt's  speech?  Nothing  in 
his  voice  or  face  showed  the  sense  of  any  shades  of 
expression  or  of  feeling:  he  seemed  to  apply  to  every 
thing  the  measure  of  the  same  crude  flippancy.  But 
such  considerations  could  not  curb  Ralph  now.  He  said 

to  himself  "Keep  your  temper — keep  your  temper " 

and  his  anger  suddenly  boiled  over. 

"Look  here,  Moffatt,"  he  said,  getting  to  his  feet, 
"the  fact  that  I've  been  divorced  from  Mrs.  Marvell 
doesn't  authorize  any  one  to  take  that  tone  to  me  in 
speaking  of  her." 

Moffatt  met  the  challenge  with  a  calm  stare  under 
[4651 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

which  there  were  dawning  signs  of  surprise  and  in 
terest.  "That  so?  Well,  if  that's  the  case  I  presume  I 
ought  to  feel  the  same  way:  I've  been  divorced  from 
her  myself." 

For  an  instant  the  words  conveyed  no  meaning  to 
Ralph;  then  they  surged  up  into  his  brain  and  flung 
him  forward  with  half-raised  arm.  But  he  felt  the  gro- 
tesqueness  of  the  gesture  and  his  arm  dropped  back 
to  his  side.  A  series  of  unimportant  and  irrelevant 
things  raced  through  his  mind;  then  obscurity  settled 
down  on  it.  "This  man  .  .  .  this  man  ..."  was  the  one 
fiery  point  in  his  darkened  consciousness.  .  .  "What  on 
earth  are  you  talking  about?"  he  brought  out. 

"Why,  facts,"  said  Moffatt,  in  a  cool  half -humorous 
voice.  "You  didn't  know?  I  understood  from  Mrs. 
Marvell  your  folks  had  a  prejudice  against  divorce,  so 
I  suppose  she  kept  quiet  about  that  early  episode.  The 
truth  is,"  he  continued  amicably,  "I  wouldn't  have 
alluded  to  it  now  if  you  hadn't  taken  rather  a  high  tone 
with  me  about  our  little  venture;  but  now  it's  out  I 
guess  you  may  as  well  hear  the  whole  story.  It's  mighty 
wholesome  for  a  man  to  have  a  round  now  and  then 
with  a  few  facts.  Shall  I  go  on?" 

Ralph  had  stood  listening  without  a  sign,  but  as 
Moffatt  ended  he  made  a  slight  motion  of  acquiescence. 
He  did  not  otherwise  change  his  attitude,  except  to 
grasp  with  one  hand  the  back  of  the  chair  that  Moffatt 
pushed  toward  him. 

[466] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Rather  stand?  ..."  Moffatt  himself  dropped  back 
into  his  seat  and  took  the  pose  of  easy  narrative.  "Well, 
it  was  this  way.  Undine  Spragg  and  I  were  made  one 
at  Opake,  Nebraska,  just  nine  years  ago  last  month. 
My!  She  was  a  beauty  then.  Nothing  much  had  hap 
pened  to  her  before  but  being  engaged  for  a  year  or 
two  to  a  soft  called  Millard  Binch;  the  same  she  passed 
on  to  Indiana  Rolliver;  and — well,  I  guess  she  liked 
the  change.  We  didn't  have  what  you'd  called  a  society 
wedding:  no  best  man  or  bridesmaids  or  Voice  that 
Breathed  o'er  Eden.  Fact  is,  Pa  and  Ma  didn't  know 
about  it  till  it  was  over.  But  it  was  a  marriage  fast 
enough,  as  they  found  out  when  they  tried  to  undo  it. 
Trouble  was,  they  caught  on  too  soon;  we  only  had  a 
fortnight.  Then  they  hauled  Undine  back  to  Apex, 
and — well,  I  hadn't  the  cash  or  the  pull  to  fight  'em. 
Uncle  Abner  was  a  pretty  big  man  out  there  then;  and 
he  had  James  J.  Rolliver  behind  him.  I  always  know 
when  I'm  licked;  and  I  was  licked  that  time.  So  we 
unlooped  the  loop,  and  they  fixed  it  up  for  me  to  make 
a  trip  to  Alaska.  Let  me  see — that  was  the  year  before 
they  moved  over  to  New  York.  Next  time  I  saw  Undine 
I  sat  alongside  of  her  at  the  theatre  the  day  your  en 
gagement  was  announced." 

He  still  kept  to  his  half-humorous  minor  key,  as 

though  he  were  in  the  first  stages  of  an  after-dinner 

speech;   but  as  he  went  on  his  bodily  presence,  which 

hitherto  had  seemed  to  Ralph  the  mere  average  gar- 

[467] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

ment  of  vulgarity,  began  to  loom,  huge  and  portentous 
as*  some  monster  released  from  a  magician's  bottle. 
His  redness,  his  glossiness,  his  baldness,  and  the  care 
fully  brushed  ring  of  hair  encircling  it;  the  square  line 
of  his  shoulders,  the  too  careful  fit  of  his  clothes,  the 
prominent  lustre  of  his  scarf-pin,  the  growth  of  short 
black  hair  on  his  manicured  hands,  even  the  tiny 
cracks  and  crows'-feet  beginning  to  show  in  the  hard 
close  surface  of  his  complexion :  all  these  solid  witnesses 
to  his  reality  and  his  proximity  pressed  on  Ralph  with 
the  mounting  pang  of  physical  nausea. 

"This  man  .  .  .  this  man  .  .  ."  he  couldn't  get  be 
yond  the  thought:  whichever  way  he  turned  his  hag 
gard  thought,  there  was  Moffatt  bodily  blocking  the 
perspective.  .  .  Ralph's  eyes  roamed  toward  the  crystal 
toy  that  stood  on  the  desk  beside  Moffatt 's  hand. 
Faugh!  That  such  a  hand  should  have  touched  it! 

Suddenly  he  heard  himself  speaking.  "Before  my 
marriage — did  you  know  they  hadn't  told  me?" 

"Why,  I  understood  as  much.  .  ." 

Ralph  pushed  on:  "You  knew  it  the  day  I  met  you 
in  Mr.  Spragg's  office?" 

Moffatt  considered  a  moment,  as  if  the  incident  had 
escaped  him.  "Did  we  meet  there?"  He  seemed  benev 
olently  ready  for  enlightenment.  But  Ralph  had  been 
assailed  by  another  memory;  he  recalled  that  Moffatt 
had  dined  one  night  in  his  house,  that  he  and  the  man 
who  now  faced  him  had  sat  at  the  same  table,  their 
wife  between  them.  .  . 

[468] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

He  was  seized  with  another  dumb  gust  of  fury; 
but  it  died  out  and  left  him  face  to  face  with  the  use- 
lessness,  the  irrelevance  of  all  the  old  attitudes  of  ap 
propriation  and  defiance.  He  seemed  to  be  stumbling 
about  in  his  inherited  prejudices  like  a  modern  man  in 
mediaeval  armour.  .  .  Moffatt  still  sat  at  his  desk,  un 
moved  and  apparently  uncomprehending.  "He  doesn't 
even  know  what  I'm  feeling,"  flashed  through  Ralph; 
and  the  whole  archaic  structure  of  his  rites  and  sanc 
tions  tumbled  down  about  him. 

Through  the  noise  of  the  crash  he  heard  Moffatt's 
voice  going  on  without  perceptible  change  of  tone: 
"About  that  other  matter  now  .  .  .  you  can't  feel  any 
meaner  about  it  than  I  do,  I  can  tell  you  that .  .  . 
but  all  we've  got  to  do  is  to  sit  tight.  .  ." 

Ralph  turned  from  the  voice,  and  found  himself 
outside  on  the  landing,  and  then  in  the  street  below. 

XXXVI 

HE  stood  at  the  corner  of  Wall  Street,  looking  up 
and  down  its  hot  summer  perspective.  He  no 
ticed  the  swirls  of  dust  in  the  cracks  of  the  pavement, 
the  rubbish  in  the  gutters,   the  ceaseless   stream   of 
perspiring  faces  that  poured  by  under  tilted  hats. 

He  found  himself,  next,  slipping  northward  between 

the  glazed  walls  of  the  Subway,  another  languid  crowd 

in  the  seats  about  him  and  the  nasal  yelp  of  the  stations 

ringing  through  the  car  like  some  repeated  ritual  wail. 

[469] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  blindness  within  him  seemed  to  have  intensified 
his  physical  perceptions,  his  sensitiveness  to  the  heat, 
the  noise,  the  smells  of  the  dishevelled  midsummer 
city;  but  combined  with  the  acuter  perception  of  these 
offenses  was  a  complete  indifference  to  them,  as  though 
he  were  some  vivisected  animal  deprived  of  the  power 
of  discrimination. 

Now  he  had  turned  into  Waverly  Place,  and  was 
walking  westward  toward  Washington  Square,  At  the 
corner  he  pulled  himself  up,  saying  half-aloud:  "The 
office — I  ought  to  be  at  the  office."  He  drew  out  his 
watch  and  stared  at  it  blankly.  What  the  devil  had  he 
taken  it  out  for?  He  had  to  go  through  a  laborious  proc 
ess  of  readjustment  to  find  out  what  it  had  to  say.  .  . 
Twelve  o'clock.  .  .  Should  he  turn  back  to  the  office? 
It  seemed  easier  to  cross  the  square,  go  up  the  steps 
of  the  old  house  and  slip  his  key  into  the  door.  .  . 

The  house  was  empty.  His  mother,  a  few  days 
previously,  had  departed  with  Mr.  Dagonet  for  their 
usual  two  months  on  the  Maine  coast,  where  Ralph 
was  to  join  them  with  his  boy.  .  .  The  blinds  were  all 
drawn  down,  and  the  freshness  and  silence  of  the 
marble-paved  hall  laid  soothing  hands  on  him.  .  .  He 
said  to  himself:  "I'll  jump  into  a  cab  presently,  and 

go  and  lunch  at  the  club "  He  laid  down  his  hat  and 

stick  and  climbed  the  carpetless  stairs  to  his  room. 

When  he  entered  it  he  had  the  shock  of  feeling  himself 

in  a  strange  place:    it  did  not  seem  like  anything  he 

[470] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

had  ever  seen  before.  Then,  one  by  one,  all  the  old  stale 
usual  things  in  it  confronted  him,  and  he  longed  with  a 
sick  intensity  to  be  in  a  place  that  was  really  strange. 

"  How  on  earth  can  I  go  on  living  here?  "  he  wondered. 

A  careless  servant  had  left  the  outer  shutters  open, 
and  the  sun  was  beating  on  the  window-panes.  Ralph 
pushed  open  the  windows,  shut  the  shutters,  and 
wandered  toward  his  arm-chair.  Beads  of  perspiration 
stood  on  his  forehead:  the  temperature  of  the  room 
reminded  him  of  the  heat  under  the  ilexes  of  the  Sienese 
villa  where  he  and  Undine  had  sat  through  a  long  July 
afternoon.  He  saw  her  before  him,  leaning  against  the 
tree-trunk  in  her  white  dress,  limpid  and  inscrutable.  .  . 
"We  were  made  one  at  Opake,  Nebraska.  .  ."  Had  she 
been  thinking  of  it  that  afternoon  at  Siena,  he  wondered? 
Did  she  ever  think  of  it  at  all?  ...  It  was  she  who  had 
asked  Moffatt  to  dine.  She  had  said:  "Father  brought 
him  home  one  day  at  Apex.  .  .  I  don't  remember  ever 
having  seen  him  since" — and  the  man  she  spoke  of 
had  had  her  in  his  arms  .  .  .  and  perhaps  it  was  really 
all  she  remembered! 

She  had  lied  to  him — lied  to  him  from  the  first .  .  . 
there  hadn't  been  a  moment  when  she  hadn't  lied  to 
him,  deliberately,  ingeniously  and  inventively.  As  he 
thought  of  it,  there  came  to  him,  for  the  first  time  in 
months,  that  overwhelming  sense  of  her  physical  near 
ness  which  had  once  so  haunted  and  tortured  him. 
Her  freshness,  her  fragrance,  the  luminous  haze  of  her 
[4711 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

youth,  filled  the  room  with  a  mocking  glory;  and  he 
dropped  his  head  on  his  hands  to  shut  it  out.  .  . 

The  vision  was  swept  away  by  another  wave  of 
hurrying  thoughts.  He  felt  it  was  intensely  important 
that  he  should  keep  the  thread  of  every  one  of  them, 
that  they  all  represented  things  to  be  said  or  done,  or 
guarded  against;  and  his  mind,  with  the  unwondering 
versatility  and  tireless  haste  of  the  dreamer's  brain, 
seemed  to  be  pursuing  them  all  simultaneously.  Then 
they  became  as  unreal  and  meaningless  as  the  red 
specks  dancing  behind  the  lids  against  which  he  had 
pressed  his  fists  clenched,  and  he  had  the  feeling  that 
if  he  opened  his  eyes  they  would  vanish,  and  the 
familiar  daylight  look  in  on  him.  .  . 

A  knock  disturbed  him.  The  old  parlour-maid  who 
was  always  left  in  charge  of  the  house  had  come  up  to 
ask  if  he  wasn't  well,  and  if  there  was  anything  she 
could  do  for  him.  He  told  her  no  ...  he  was  perfectly 
well .  .  .  or,  rather,  no,  he  wasn't ...  he  supposed  it 
must  be  the  heat;  and  he  began  to  scold  her  for  having 
forgotten  to  close  the  shutters. 

It  wasn't  her  fault,  it  appeared,  but  Eliza's:  her 
tone  implied  that  he  knew  what  one  had  to  expect  of 
Eliza  .  .  .  and  wouldn't  he  go  down  to  the  nice  cool 
shady  dining-room,  and  let  her  make  him  an  iced  drink 
and  a  few  sandwiches? 

"I've  always  told  Mrs.  Marvell  I  couldn't  turn  my 
back  for  a  second  but  what  Eliza'd  find  a  way  to  make 
[4721 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

trouble,"  the  old  woman  continued,  evidently  glad  of 
the  chance  to  air  a  perennial  grievance.  "It's  not  only 
the  things  she  forgets  to  do,"  she  added  significantly; 
and  it  dawned  on  Ralph  that  she  was  making  an  ap 
peal  to  him,  expecting  him  to  take  sides  with  her  in 
the  chronic  conflict  between  herself  and  Eliza.  He  said 
to  himself  that  perhaps  she  was  right .  .  .  that  perhaps 
there  was  something  he  ought  to  do  ...  that  his  mother 
was  old,  and  didn't  always  see  things;  and  for  a  while 
his  mind  revolved  this  problem  with  feverish  inten 
sity.  .  . 

"Then  you'll  come  down,  sir?" 

"Yes." 

The  door  closed,  and  he  heard  her  heavy  heels  along 
the  passage. 

"  But  the  money — where's  the  money  to  come  from?  " 
The  question  sprang  out  from  some  denser  fold  of  the 
fog  in  his  brain.  The  money — how  on  earth  was  he  to 
pay  it  back?  How  could  he  have  wasted  his  time  in 
thinking  of  anything  else  while  that  central  difficulty 
existed? 

"But  I  can't  ...  I  can't  .  .  .  it's  gone  .  .  .  and  even 
if  it  weren't ..."  He  dropped  back  in  his  chair  and 
took  his  head  between  his  hands.  He  had  forgotten 
what  he  wanted  the  money  for.  He  made  a  great  effort 
to  regain  hold  of  the  idea,  but  all  the  whirring,  shut 
tling,  flying  had  abruptly  ceased  in  his  brain,  and  he 
sat  with  his  eyes  shut,  staring  straight  into  darkness.  .  . 
[473] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  clock  struck,  and  he  remembered  that  he  had 
said  he  would  go  down  to  the  dining-room.  "If  I  don't 
she'll  come  up "  He  raised  his  head  and  sat  listen 
ing  for  the  sound  of  the  old  woman's  step:  it  seemed 
to  him  perfectly  intolerable  that  any  one  should  cross 
the  threshold  of  the  room  again. 

"Why  can't  they  leave  me  alone?"  he  groaned.  .  . 
At  length  through  the  silence  of  the  empty  house,  he 
fancied  he  heard  a  door  opening  and  closing  far  below; 
and  he  said  to  himself:  "She's  coming." 

He  got  to  his  feet  and  went  to  the  door.  He  didn't 
feel  anything  now  except  the  insane  dread  of  hearing 
the  woman's  steps  come  nearer.  He  bolted  the  door 
and  stood  looking  about  the  room.  For  a  moment  he 
was  conscious  of  seeing  it  in  every  detail  with  a  dis 
tinctness  he  had  never  before  known;  then  everything 
in  it  vanished  but  the  single  narrow  panel  of  a  drawer 
under  one  of  the  bookcases.  He  went  up  to  the  drawer, 
knelt  down  and  slipped  his  hand  into  it. 

As  he  raised  himself  he  listened  again,  and  this 
time  he  distinctly  heard  the  old  servant's  steps  on  the 
stairs.  He  passed  his  left  hand  over  the  side  of  his 
head,  and  down  the  curve  of  the  skull  behind  the  ear. 
He  said  to  himself:  "My  wife  .  .  .  this  will  make  it  all 
right  for  her  ..."  and  a  last  flash  of  irony  twitched 
through  him.  Then  he  felt  again,  more  deliberately, 
for  the  spot  he  wanted,  and  put  the  muzzle  of  his  re 
volver  against  it. 

[474] 


BOOK   V 


XXXVII 

IN  a  drawing-room  hung  with  portraits  of  high- 
nosed  personages  in  perukes  and  orders,  a  circle 
of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  looking  not  unlike  every-day 
versions  of  the  official  figures  above  their  heads,  sat  ex 
amining  with  friendly  interest  a  little  boy  in  mourning. 

The  boy  was  slim,  fair  and  shy,  and  his  small  black 
figure,  islanded  in  the  middle  of  the  wide  lustrous  floor, 
looked  curiously  lonely  and  remote.  This  effect  of  re 
moteness  seemed  to  strike  his  mother  as  something  in 
tentional,  and  almost  naughty,  for  after  having  launched 
him  from  the  door,  and  waited  to  judge  of  the  impres 
sion  he  produced,  she  came  forward  and,  giving  him  a 
slight  push,  said  impatiently:  "Paul!  Why  don't  you 
go  and  kiss  your  new  granny?" 

The  boy,  without  turning  to  her,  or  moving,  sent  his 
blue  glance  gravely  about  the  circle.  "Does  she  want 
me  to?"  he  asked,  in  a  tone  of  evident  apprehension; 
and  on  his  mother's  answering:  "Of  course,  you  silly!" 
he  added  earnestly:  "How  many  more  do  you  think 
there'll  be?" 

Undine  blushed  to  the  ripples  of  her  brilliant  hair. 
[477] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

"I  never  knew  such  a  child!  They've  turned  him  into  a 
perfect  little  savage!" 

Raymond  de  Chelles  advanced  from  behind  his 
mother's  chair. 

"He  won't  be  a  savage  long  with  me,"  he  said, 
stooping  down  so  that  his  fatigued  finely-drawn  face 
was  close  to  Paul's.  Their  eyes  met  and  the  boy  smiled. 
"Come  along,  old  chap,"  Chelles  continued  in  English, 
drawing  the  little  boy  after  him. 

"//  est  bien  beau"  the  Marquise  de  Chelles  observed, 
her  eyes  turning  from  Paul's  grave  face  to  her  daughter- 
in-law's  vivid  countenance. 

"Do  be   nice,   darling!   Say,   'bonjour,   Madame,'  ' 
Undine  urged. 

An  odd  mingling  of  emotions  stirred  in  her  while  she 
stood  watching  Paul  make  the  round  of  the  family 
group  under  her  husband's  guidance.  It  was  "lovely" 
to  have  the  child  back,  and  to  find  him,  after  their 
three  years'  separation,  grown  into  so  endearing  a 
figure:  her  first  glimpse  of  him  when,  in  Mrs.  Heeny's 
arms,  he  had  emerged  that  morning  from  the  steamer 
train,  had  shown  what  an  acquisition  he  would  be.  If 
she  had  had  any  lingering  doubts  on  the  point,  the  im 
pression  produced  on  her  husband  would  have  dis 
pelled  them.  Chelles  had  been  instantly  charmed,  and 
Paul,  in  a  shy  confused  way,  was  already  responding  to 
his  advances.  The  Count  and  Countess  Raymond  had 
returned  but  a  few  weeks  before  from  their  protracted 
[4781 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

wedding  journey,  and  were  staying — as  they  were  ap 
parently  to  do  whenever  they  came  to  Paris — with  the 
old  Marquis,  Raymond's  father,  who  had  amicably  pro 
posed  that  little  Paul  Marvell  should  also  share  the 
hospitality  of  the  Hotel  de  Chelles.  Undine,  at  first, 
was  somewhat  dismayed  to  find  that  she  was  expected 
to  fit  the  boy  and  his  nurse  into  a  corner  of  her  con 
tracted  entresol.  But  the  possibility  of  a  mother's  not 
finding  room  for  her  son,  however  cramped  her  own 
quarters,  seemed  not  to  have  occurred  to  her  new  re 
lations,  and  the  preparing  of  her  dressing-room  and 
boudoir  for  Paul's  occupancy  was  carried  on  by  the 
household  with  a  zeal  which  obliged  her  to  dissemble 
her  lukewarmness. 

Undine  had  supposed  that  on  her  marriage  one  of 
the  great  suites  of  the  Hotel  de  Chelles  would  be  emptied 
of  its  tenants  and  put  at  her  husband's  disposal;  but 
she  had  since  learned  that,  even  had  such  a  plan  oc 
curred  to  her  parents-in-law,  considerations  of  economy 
would  have  hindered  it.  The  old  Marquis  and  his  wife, 
who  were  content,  when  they  came  up  from  Burgundy 
in  the  spring,  with  a  modest  set  of  rooms  looking  out 
on  the  court  of  their  ancestral  residence,  expected  their 
son  and  his  wife  to  fit  themselves  into  the  still  smaller 
apartment  which  had  served  as  Raymond's  bachelor 
lodging.  The  rest  of  the  fine  old  mouldering  house — 
the  tall-windowed  premier  on  the  garden,  and  the 
whole  of  the  floor  above — had  been  let  for  years  to  old- 
[479] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

fashioned  tenants  who  would  have  been  more  surprised 
than  their  landlord  had  he  suddenly  proposed  to  dis 
possess  them.  Undine,  at  first,  had  regarded  these  ar 
rangements  as  merely  provisional.  She  was  persuaded 
that,  under  her  influence,  Raymond  would  soon  con 
vert  his  parents  to  more  modern  ideas,  and  meanwhile 
she  was  still  in  the  flush  of  a  completer  well-being  than 
she  had  ever  known,  and  disposed,  for  the  moment,  to 
make  light  of  any  inconveniences  connected  with  it. 
The  three  months  since  her  marriage  had  been  more 
nearly  like  what  she  had  dreamed  of  than  any  of  her 
previous  experiments  in  happiness.  At  last  she  had 
what  she  wanted,  and  for  the  first  time  the  glow  of 
triumph  was  warmed  by  a  deeper  feeling.  Her  husband 
was  really  charming  (it  was  odd  how  he  reminded  her 
of  Ralph!),  and  after  her  bitter  two  years  of  loneli 
ness  and  humiliation  it  was  delicious  to  find  herself 
once  more  adored  and  protected. 

The  very  fact  that  Raymond  was  more  jealous  of 
her  than  Ralph  had  ever  been — or  at  any  rate  less 
reluctant  to  show  it — gave  her  a  keener  sense  of  re 
covered  power.  None  of  the  men  who  had  been  in  love 
with  her  before  had  been  so  frankly  possessive,  or  so 
eager  for  reciprocal  assurances  of  constancy.  She  knew 
that  Ralph  had  suffered  deeply  from  her  intimacy 
with  Van  Degen,  but  he  had  betrayed  his  feeling  only 
by  a  more  studied  detachment;  and  Van  Degen,  from 
the  first,  had  been  contemptuously  indifferent  to  what 
[480] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

she  did  or  felt  when  she  was  out  of  his  sight.  As  to  her 
earlier  experiences,  she  had  frankly  forgotten  them: 
her  sentimental  memories  went  back  no  farther  than 
the  beginning  of  her  New  York  career. 

Raymond  seemed  to  attach  more  importance  to 
love,  in  all  its  manifestations,  than  was  usual  or  con 
venient  in  a  husband;  and  she  gradually  began  to  be 
aware  that  her  domination  over  him  involved  a  corre 
sponding  loss  of  independence.  Since  their  return  to 
Paris  she  had  found  that  she  was  expected  to  give  a 
circumstantial  report  of  every  hour  she  spent  away 
from  him.  She  had  nothing  to  hide,  and  no  designs 
against  his  peace  of  mind  except  those  connected  with 
her  frequent  and  costly  sessions  at  the  dress-makers'; 
but  she  had  never  before  been  called  upon  to  account 
to  any  one  for  the  use  of  her  time,  and  after  the  first 
amused  surprise  at  Raymond's  always  wanting  to 
know  where  she  had  been  and  whom  she  had  seen  she 
began  to  be  oppressed  by  so  exacting  a  devotion.  Her 
parents,  from  her  tenderest  youth,  had  tacitly  recog 
nized  her  inalienable  right  to  "go  round,"  and  Ralph 
— though  from  motives  which  she  divined  to  be  dif 
ferent — had  shown  the  same  respect  for  her  freedom. 
It  was  therefore  disconcerting  to  find  that  Raymond 
expected  her  to  choose  her  friends,  and  even  her  ac 
quaintances,  in  conformity  not  only  with  his  personal 
tastes  but  with  a  definite  and  complicated  code  of 
family  prejudices  and  traditions;  and  she  was  espe- 
[4811 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

cially  surprised  to  discover  that  he  viewed  with  dis 
approval  her  intimacy  with  the  Princess  Estradina. 

"My  cousin's  extremely  amusing,  of  course,  but 
utterly  mad  and  very  mat  entourie.  Most  of  the  people 
she  has  about  her  ought  to  be  in  prison  or  Bedlam: 
especially  that  unspeakable  Madame  Adelschein,  who's 

^a  candidate  for  both.  My  aunt's  an  angel,  but  she's 
been  weak  enough  to  let  Lili  turn  the  Hotel  de  Dor- 
dogne  into  an  annex  of  Montmartre.  Of  course  you'll 
have  to  show  yourself  there  now  and  then:  in  these 
days  families  like  ours  must  hold  together.  But  go  to 
the  reunions  de  famille  rather  than  to  Lili's  intimate 
parties;  go  with  me,  or  with  my  mother;  don't  let 
yourself  be  seen  there  alone.  You're  too  young  and  good- 

'  looking  to  be  mixed  up  with  that  crew.  A  woman's 
classed — or  rather  unclassed — by  being  known  as  one 

^  of  Lili's  set." 

Agreeable  as  it  was  to  Undine  that  an  appeal  to  her 
discretion  should  be  based  on  the  ground  of  her  youth 
and  good-looks,  she  was  dismayed  to  find  herself  cut  off 
from  the  very  circle  she  had  meant  them  to  establish 
her  in.  Before  she  had  become  Raymond's  wife  there 
had  been  a  moment  of  sharp  tension  in  her  relations 
with  the  Princess  Estradina  and  the  old  Duchess. 
They  had  done  their  best  to  prevent  her  marrying 
their  cousin,  and  had  gone  so  far  as  openly  to  accuse  her 
of  being  the  cause  of  a  breach  between  themselves  and 
his  parents.  But  Ralph  Marvell's  death  had  brought 
[4821 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

about  a  sudden  change  in  her  situation.  She  was  now 
no  longer  a  divorced  woman  struggling  to  obtain  ec 
clesiastical  sanction  for  her  remarriage,  but  a  widow 
whose  conspicuous  beauty  and  independent  situation 
made  her  the  object  of  lawful  aspirations.  The  first 
person  to  seize  on  this  distinction  and  make  the  most 
of  it  was  her  old  enemy  the  Marquise  de  Trezac.  The 
latter,  who  had  been  loudly  charged  by  the  house  of 
Chelles  with  furthering  her  beautiful  compatriot's  de 
signs,  had  instantly  seen  a  chance  of  vindicating  her 
self  by  taking  the  widowed  Mrs.  Marvell  under  her 
wing  and  favouring  the  attentions  of  other  suitors. 
These  were  not  lacking,  and  the  expected  result  had 
followed.  Raymond  de  Chelles,  more  than  ever  in 
fatuated  as  attainment  became  less  certain,  had  claimed 
a  definite  promise  from  Undine,  and  his  family,  dis 
couraged  by  his  persistent  bachelorhood,  and  their 
failure  to  fix  his  attention  on  any  of  the  amiable  maidens 
obviously  designed  to  continue  the  race,  had  ended  by 
withdrawing  their  opposition  and  discovering  in  Mrs. 
Marvell  the  moral  and  financial  merits  necessary  to 
justify  their  change  of  front. 

"A  good  match?  If  she  isn't,  I  should  like  to  know 
what  the  Chelles  call  one!"  Madame  de  Trezac  went 
about  indefatigably  proclaiming.  "Related  to  the  best 
people  in  New  York — well,  by  marriage,  that  is;  and 
her  husband  left  much  more  money  than  was  expected. 
It  goes  to  the  boy,  of  course;  but  as  the  boy  is  with  his 
[483] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

mother  she  naturally  enjoys  the  income.  And  her 
father's  a  rich  man — much  richer  than  is  generally 
known;  I  mean  what  we  call  rich  in  America,  you 
understand!" 

Madame  de  Trezac  had  lately  discovered  that  the 
proper  attitude  for  the  American  married  abroad  was 
that  of  a  militant  patriotism;  and  she  flaunted  Undine 
Marvell  in  the  face  of  the  Faubourg  like  a  particularly 
showy  specimen  of  her  national  banner.  The  success 
of  the  experiment  emboldened  her  to  throw  off  the 
most  sacred  observances  of  her  past.  She  took  up 
Madame  Adelschein,  she  entertained  the  James  J. 
Rollivers,  she  resuscitated  Creole  dishes,  she  patron 
ized  negro  melodists,  she  abandoned  her  weekly  teas 
for  impromptu  afternoon  dances,  and  the  prim  drawing- 
room  in  which  dowagers  had  droned  echoed  with  a  cos 
mopolitan  hubbub. 

Even  when  the  period  of  tension  was  over,  and  Un 
dine  had  been  officially  received  into  the  family  of  her 
betrothed,  Madame  de  Trezac  did  not  at  once  sur 
render.  She  laughingly  professed  to  have  had  enough 
of  the  proprieties,  and  declared  herself  bored  by  the 
social  rites  she  had  hitherto  so  piously  performed. 
"You'll  always  find  a  corner  of  home  here,  dearest, 
when  you  get  tired  of  their  ceremonies  and  solem 
nities,"  she  said  as  she  embraced  the  bride  after  the 
wedding  breakfast;  and  Undine  hoped  that  the  de 
voted  Nettie  would  in  fact  provide  a  refuge  from  the 
[484] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

extreme  domesticity  of  her  new  state.  But  since  her 
return  to  Paris,  and  her  taking  up  her  domicile  in  the 
Hotel  de  Chelles,  she  had  found  Madame  de  Trezac 
less  and  less  disposed  to  abet  her  in  any  assertion  of 
independence. 

"My  dear,  a  woman  must  adopt  her  husband's  na 
tionality  whether  she  wants  to  or  not.  It's  the  law, 
and  it's  the  custom  besides.  If  you  wanted  to  amuse 
yourself  with  your  Nouveau  Luxe  friends  you  oughtn't 
to  have  married  Raymond — but  of  course  I  say  that 
only  in  joke.  As  if  any  woman  would  have  hesitated 
who'd  had  your  chance!  Take  my  advice — keep  out  of 
Lili's  set  just  at  first.  Later  .  .  .  well,  perhaps  Raymond 
won't  be  so  particular;  but  meanwhile  you'd  make  a 
great  mistake  to  go  against  his  people —  "  and  Ma 
dame  de  Trezac,  with  a  "Chere  Madame,"  swept  for 
ward  from  her  tea-table  to  receive  the  first  of  the  re 
turning  dowagers. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Mrs.  Heeny  arrived 
with  Paul;  and  for  a  while  Undine  was  pleasantly  ab 
sorbed  in  her  boy.  She  kept  Mrs.  Heeny  in  Paris  for  a 
fortnight,  and  between  her  more  pressing  occupations 
it  amused  her  to  listen  to  the  masseuse's  New  York 
gossip  and  her  comments  on  the  social  organization  of 
the  old  world.  It  was  Mrs.  Heeny's  first  visit  to  Europe, 
and  she  confessed  to  Undine  that  she  had  always 
wanted  to  "see  something  of  the  aristocracy" — using 
the  phrase  as  a  naturalist  might,  with  no  hint  of  per- 
[4851 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

sonal  pretensions.  Mrs.  Heeny's  democratic  ease  was 
combined  with  the  strictest  professional  discretion,  and 
it  would  never  have  occurred  to  her  to  regard  herself, 
or  to  wish  others  to  regard  her,  as  anything  but  a 
manipulator  of  muscles;  but  in  that  character  she  felt 
herself  entitled  to  admission  to  the  highest  circles. 

"They  certainly  do  things  with  style  over  here — 
but  it's  kinder  one-horse  after  New  York,  ain't  it?  Is 
this  what  they  call  their  season?  Why,  you  dined  home 
two  nights  last  week.  They  ought  to  come  over  to  New 
York  and  see!"  And  she  poured  into  Undine's  half- 
envious  ear  a  list  of  the  entertainments  which  had  illu 
minated  the  last  weeks  of  the  New  York  winter.  "I 
suppose  you'll  begin  to  give  parties  as  soon  as  ever  you 
get  into  a  house  of  your  own.  You're  not  going  to  have 
one?  Oh,  well,  then  you'll  give  a  lot  of  big  week-ends 
at  your  place  down  in  the  Shatter-country — that's 
where  the  swells  all  go  to  in  the  summer  time,  ain't  it? 
But  I  dunno  what  your  ma  would  say  if  she  knew  you 
were  going  to  live  on  with  his  folks  after  you're  done 
honey-mooning.  Why,  we  read  in  the  papers  you  were 
going  to  live  in  some  grand  hotel  or  other — oh,  they 
call  their  houses  hotels,  do  they?  That's  funny:  I  sup 
pose  it's  because  they  let  out  part  of  'em.  Well,  you 
look  handsomer  than  ever,  Undine;  I'll  take  that  back 
to  your  mother,  anyhow.  And  he's  dead  in  love,  I  can 

see  that;  reminds  me  of  the  way "  but  she  broke 

off  suddenly,  as  if  something  in  Undine's  look  had 
silenced  her. 

[4861 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Even  to  herself,  Undine  did  not  like  to  call  up  the 
image  of  Ralph  Marvell;  and  any  mention  of  his  name 
gave  her  a  vague  sense  of  distress.  His  death  had  re 
leased  her,  had  given  her  what  she  wanted;  yet  she 
could  honestly  say  to  herself  that  she  had  not  wanted 
him  to  die — at  least  not  to  die  like  that.  .  .  People  said 
at  the  time  that  it  was  the  hot  weather — his  own 
family  had  said  so:  he  had  never  quite  got  over  his 
attack  of  pneumonia,  and  the  sudden  rise  of  tempera 
ture — one  of  the  fierce  "heat-waves"  that  devastate 
New  York  in  summer — had  probably  affected  his  brain : 
the  doctors  said  such  cases  were  not  uncommon.  .  . 
She  had  worn  black  for  a  few  weeks — not  quite  mourn 
ing,  but  something  decently  regretful  (the  dress-makers 
were  beginning  to  provide  a  special  garb  for  such  cases) ; 
and  even  since  her  remarriage,  and  the  lapse  of  a  year, 
she  continued  to  wish  that  she  could  have  got  what  she 
wanted  without  having  had  to  pay  that  particular 
price  for  it. 

This  feeling  was  intensified  by  an  incident — in  it 
self  far  from  unwelcome — which  had  occurred  about 
three  months  after  Ralph's  death.  Her  lawyers  had 
written  to  say  that  the  sum  of  a  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars  had  been  paid  over  to  Marvell's  estate  by  the  Apex 
Consolidation  Company;  and  as  Marvell  had  left  a 
will  bequeathing  everything  he  possessed  to  his  son, 
this  unexpected  windfall  handsomely  increased  Paul's 
patrimony.  Undine  had  never  relinquished  her  claim 
on  her  child;  she  had  merely,  by  the  advice  of  her 
[4871 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

lawyers,  waived  the  assertion  of  her  right  for  a  few 
months  after  Mar  veil's  death,  with  the  express  stipu 
lation  that  her  doing  so  was  only  a  temporary  conces 
sion  to  the  feelings  of  her  husband's  family;  and  she 
had  held  out  against  all  attempts  to  induce  her  to  sur 
render  Paul  permanently.  Before  her  marriage  she  had 
somewhat  conspicuously  adopted  her  husband's  creed, 
and  the  Dagonets,  picturing  Paul  as  the  prey  of  the 
Jesuits,  had  made  the  mistake  of  appealing  to  the 
courts  for  his  custody.  This  had  confirmed  Undine's 
resistance,  and  her  determination  to  keep  the  child. 
The  case  had  been  decided  in  her  favour,  and  she  had 
thereupon  demanded,  and  obtained,  an  allowance  of 
five  thousand  dollars,  to  be  devoted  to  the  bringing  up 
and  education  of  her  son.  This  sum,  added  to  what  Mr. 
Spragg  had  agreed  to  give  her,  made  up  an  income 
which  had  appreciably  bettered  her  position,  and  jus 
tified  Madame  de  Trezac's  discreet  allusions  to  her 
wealth.  Nevertheless,  it  was  one  of  the  facts  about 
which  she  least  liked  to  think  when  any  chance  allusion 
evoked  Ralph's  image.  The  money  was  hers,  of  course; 
she  had  a  right  to  it,  and  she  was  an  ardent  believer 
in  "rights."  But  she  wished  she  could  have  got  it  in 
some  other  way — she  hated  the  thought  of  it  as  one 
more  instance  of  the  perverseness  with  which  things 
she  was  entitled  to  always  came  to  her  as  if  they  had 
been  stolen. 

The  approach  of  summer,  and  the  culmination  of 
[4881 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

the  Paris  season,  swept  aside  such  thoughts.  The  Coun 
tess  Raymond  de  Chelles,  contrasting  her  situation 
with  that  of  Mrs.  Undine  Marvell,  and  the  fulness  and 
animation  of  her  new  life  with  the  vacant  dissatisfied 
days  which  had  followed  on  her  return  from  Dakota, 
forgot  the  smallness  of  her  apartment,  the  inconvenient 
proximity  of  Paul  and  his  nurse,  the  interminable  round 
of  visits  with  her  mother-in-law,  and  the  long  dinners 
in  the  solemn  hotels  of  all  the  family  connection.  The 
world  was  radiant,  the  lights  were  lit,  the  music  play 
ing;  she  was  still  young,  and  better-looking  than  ever, 
with  a  Countess's  coronet,  a  famous  chateau  and  a 
handsome  and  popular  husband  who  adored  her.  And 
then  suddenly  the  lights  went  out  and  the  music 
stopped  when  one  day  Raymond,  putting  his  arm  about 
her,  said  in  his  tenderest  tones:  "And  now,  my  dear, 
the  world's  had  you  long  enough  and  it's  my  turn. 
What  do  you  say  to  going  down  to  Saint  Desert?" 

XXXVIII 

IN  a  window  of  the  long  gallery  of  the  chateau  de 
Saint  Desert  the  new  Marquise  de  Chelles  stood 
looking  down  the  poplar  avenue  into  the  November 
rain.  It  had  been  raining  heavily  and  persistently  for  a 
longer  time  than  she  could  remember.  Day  after  day 
the  hills  beyond  the  park  had  been  curtained  by  mo 
tionless  clouds,  the  gutters  of  the  long  steep  roofs  had 
[4891 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

gurgled  with  a  perpetual  overflow,  the  opaque  sur 
face  of  the  moat  been  peppered  by  a  continuous  pelting 
of  big  drops.  The  water  lay  in  glassy  stretches  under 
the  trees  and  along  the  sodden  edges  of  the  garden- 
paths,  it  rose  in  a  white  mist  from  the  fields  beyond,  it 
exuded  in  a  chill  moisture  from  the  brick  flooring  of  the 
passages  and  from  the  walls  of  the  rooms  on  the  lower 
floor.  Everything  in  the  great  empty  house  smelt  of 
dampness:  the  stuffing  of  the  chairs,  the  threadbare 
folds  of  the  faded  curtains,  the  splendid  tapestries, 
that  were  fading  too,  on  the  walls  of  the  room  in  which 
Undine  stood,  and  the  wide  bands  of  crape  which  her 
husband  had  insisted  on  her  keeping  on  her  black  dresses 
till  the  last  hour  of  her  mourning  for  the  old  Marquis. 

The  summer  had  been  more  than  usually  inclement, 
and  since  her  first  coming  to  the  country  Undine  had 
lived  through  many  periods  of  rainy  weather;  but  none 
which  had  gone  before  had  so  completely  epitomized,  so 
summed  up  in  one  vast  monotonous  blur,  the  image  of 
her  long  months  at  Saint  Desert. 

When,  the  year  before,  she  had  reluctantly  suffered 
herself  to  be  torn  from  the  joys  of  Paris,  she  had  been 
sustained  by  the  belief  that  her  exile  would  not  be  of 
long  duration.  Once  Paris  was  out  of  sight,  she  had 
even  found  a  certain  lazy  charm  in  the  long  warm 
days  at  Saint  Desert.  Her  parents-in-law  had  remained 
in  town,  and  she  enjoyed  being  alone  with  her  husband, 
exploring  and  appraising  the  treasures  of  the  great  half- 
[4901 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

abandoned  house,  and  watching  her  boy  scamper  over 
the  June  meadows  or  trot  about  the  gardens  on  the 
poney  his  stepfather  had  given  him.  Paul,  after  Mrs. 
Heeny's  departure,  had  grown  fretful  and  restive,  and 
Undine  had  found  it  more  and  more  difficult  to  fit  his 
small  exacting  personality  into  her  cramped  rooms  and 
crowded  life.  He  irritated  her  by  pining  for  his  Aunt 
Laura,  his  Marvell  granny,  and  old  Mr.  Dagonet's 
funny  stories  about  gods  and  fairies;  and  his  wistful 
allusions  to  his  games  with  Clare's  children  sounded 
like  a  lesson  he  might  have  been  drilled  in  to  make  her 
feel  how  little  he  belonged  to  her.  But  once  released 
from  Paris,  and  blessed  with  rabbits,  a  poney  and  the 
freedom  of  the  fields,  he  became  again  all  that  a  charm 
ing  child  should  be,  and  for  a  time  it  amused  her  to 
share  in  his  romps  and  rambles.  Raymond  seemed  en 
chanted  at  the  picture  they  made,  and  the  quiet  weeks 
of  fresh  air  and  outdoor  activity  gave  her  back  a  bloom 
that  reflected  itself  in  her  tranquillized  mood.  She  was 
the  more  resigned  to  this  interlude  because  she  was  so 
sure  of  its  not  lasting.  Before  they  left  Paris  a  doctor 
had  been  found  to  say  that  Paul — who  was  certainly 
looking  pale  and  pulled-down — was  in  urgent  need  of 
sea  air,  and  Undine  had  nearly  convinced  her  hus 
band  of  the  expediency  of  hiring  a  chalet  at  Deauville 
for  July  and  August,  when  this  plan,  and  with  it  every 
other  prospect  of  escape,  was  dashed  by  the  sudden 
death  of  the  old  Marquis. 

[4911 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Undine,  at  first,  had  supposed  that  the  resulting 
change  could  not  be  other  than  favourable.  She  had 
been  on  too  formal  terms  with  her  father-in-law — a  re 
mote  and  ceremonious  old  gentleman  to  whom  her  own 
personality  was  evidently  an  insoluble  enigma — to  feel 
more  than  the  merest  conventional  pang  at  his  death; 
and  it  was  certainly  "more  fun"  to  be  a  marchioness 
than  a  countess,  and  to  know  that  one's  husband  was 
the  head  of  the  house.  Besides,  now  they  would  have 
the  chateau  to  themselves — or  at  least  the  old  Marquise, 
when  she  came,  would  be  there  as  a  guest  and  not  a 
ruler — and  visions  of  smart  house-parties  and  big 
shoots  lit  up  the  first  weeks  of  Undine's  enforced  se 
clusion.  Then,  by  degrees,  the  inexorable  conditions 
of  French  mourning  closed  in  on  her.  Immediately 
after  the  long-drawn  funeral  observances  the  bereaved 
family — mother,  daughters,  sons  and  sons-in-law — 
came  down  to  seclude  themselves  at  Saint  Desert;  and 
Undine,  through  the  slow  hot  crape-smelling  months, 
lived  encircled  by  shrouded  images  of  woe  in  which 
the  only  live  points  were  the  eyes  constantly  fixed  on 
her  least  movements.  The  hope  of  escaping  to  the 
seaside  with  Paul  vanished  in  the  pained  stare  with 
which  her  mother-in-law  received  the  suggestion. 
Undine  learned  the  next  day  that  it  had  cost  the  old 
Marquise  a  sleepless  night,  and  might  have  had  more 
distressing  results  had  it  not  been  explained  as  a  harm 
less  instance  of  transatlantic  oddness.  Raymond  en- 
[492] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

treated  his  wife  to  atone  for  her  involuntary  legerete 
by  submitting  with  a  good  grace  to  the  usages  of  her 
adopted  country;  and  he  seemed  to  regard  the  remain 
ing  months  of  the  summer  as  hardly  long  enough  for 
this  act  of  expiation.  As  Undine  looked  back  on  them, 
they  appeared  to  have  been  composed  of  an  inter 
minable  succession  of  identical  days,  in  which  attend 
ance  at  early  mass  (in  the  coroneted  gallery  she  had 
once  so  glowingly  depicted  to  Van  Degen)  was  followed 
by  a  great  deal  of  conversational  sitting  about,  a  great 
deal  of  excellent  eating,  an  occasional  drive  to  the 
nearest  town  behind  a  pair  of  heavy  draft  horses,  and 
long  evenings  in  a  lamp-heated  drawing-room  with  all 
the  windows  shut,  and  the  stout  cure  making  an  asth 
matic  fourth  at  the  Marquise's  card-table. 

Still,  even  these  conditions  were  not  permanent, 
and  the  discipline  of  the  last  years  had  trained  Undine 
to  wait  and  dissemble.  The  summer  over,  it  was  decided 
— after  a  protracted  family  conclave — that  the  state 
of  the  old  Marquise's  health  made  it  advisable  for  her 
to  spend  the  winter  with  the  married  daughter  who 
lived  near  Pau.  The  other  members  of  the  family  re 
turned  to  their  respective  estates,  and  Undine  once 
more  found  herself  alone  with  her  husband.  But  she 
knew  by  this  time  that  there  was  to  be  no  thought  of 
Paris  that  winter,  or  even  the  next  spring.  Worse  still, 
she  was  presently  to  discover  that  Raymond's  accession 
of  rank  brought  with  it  no  financial  advantages. 
[493] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Having  but  the  vaguest  notion  of  French  testamentary 
law,  she  was  dismayed  to  learn  that  the  compulsory  di 
vision  of  property  made  it  impossible  for  a  father  to 
benefit  his  eldest  son  at  the  expense  of  the  others. 
Raymond  was  therefore  little  richer  than  before,  and 
with  the  debts  of  honour  of  a  troublesome  younger 
brother  to  settle,  and  Saint  Desert  to  keep  up,  his 
available  income  was  actually  reduced.  He  held  out, 
indeed,  the  hope  of  eventual  improvement,  since  the 
old  Marquis  had  managed  his  estates  with  a  lofty  con 
tempt  for  modern  methods,  and  the  application  of  new 
principles  of  agriculture  and  forestry  were  certain  to 
yield  profitable  results.  But  for  a  year  or  two,  at  any 
rate,  this  very  change  of  treatment  would  necessitate 
the  owner's  continual  supervision,  and  would  not  in 
the  meanwhile  produce  any  increase  of  income. 

To  faire  valoir  the  family  acres  had  always,  it  ap 
peared,  been  Raymond's  deepest-seated  purpose,  and 
all  his  frivolities  dropped  from  him  with  the  prospect 
of  putting  his  hand  to  the  plough.  He  was  not,  indeed, 
inhuman  enough  to  condemn  his  wife  to  perpetual  ex 
ile.  He  meant,  he  assured  her,  that  she  should  have  her 
annual  spring  visit  to  Paris — but  he  stared  in  dismay 
at  her  suggestion  that  they  should  take  possession  of 
the  coveted  premier  of  the  Hotel  de  Chelles.  He  was 
gallant  enough  to  express  the  wish  that  it  were  in  his 
power  to  house  her  on  such  a  scale;  but  he  could  not 
conceal  his  surprise  that  she  had  ever  seriously  ex- 
[494] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

pected  it.  She  was  beginning  to  see  that  he  felt  her 
constitutional  inability  to  understand  anything  about 
money  as  the  deepest  difference  between  them.  It  was 
a  proficiency  no  one  had  ever  expected  her  to  acquire, 
and  the  lack  of  which  she  had  even  been  encouraged 
to  regard  as  a  grace  and  to  use  as  a  pretext.  During  the 
interval  between  her  divorce  and  her  remarriage  she 
had  learned  what  things  cost,  but  not  how  to  do  with 
out  them;  and  money  still  seemed  to  her  like  some 
mysterious  and  uncertain  stream  which  occasionally 
vanished  underground  but  was  sure  to  bubble  up  again 
at  one's  feet.  Now,  however,  she  found  herself  in  a 
world  where  it  represented  not  the  means  of  individual 
gratification  but  the  substance  binding  together  whole 
groups  of  interests,  and  where  the  uses  to  which  it 
might  be  put  in  twenty  years  were  considered  before 
the  reasons  for  spending  it  on  the  spot.  At  first  she  was 
sure  she  could  laugh  Raymond  out  of  his  prudence  or 
coax  him  round  to  her  point  of  view.  She  did  not 
understand  how  a  man  so  romantically  in  love  could  be 
so  unpersuadable  on  certain  points.  Hitherto  she  had  •*' 
had  to  contend  with  personal  moods,  now  she  was  argu 
ing  against  a  policy;  and  she  was  gradually  to  learn 
that  it  was  as  natural  to  Raymond  de  Chelles  to  adore 
her  and  resist  her  as  it  had  been  to  Ralph  Marvell  to 
adore  her  and  let  her  have  her  way. 

At  first,   indeed,   he   appealed  to   her   good   sense, 
using  arguments  evidently  drawn  from  accumulations 
[4951 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

of  hereditary  experience.  But  his  economic  plea  was 
as  unintelligible  to  her  as  the  silly  problems  about 
pen-knives  and  apples  in  the  "Mental  Arithmetic" 
of  her  infancy ;  and  when  he  struck  a  tenderer  note  and 
spoke  of  the  duty  of  providing  for  the  son  he  hoped 
for,  she  put  her  arms  about  him  to  whisper:  "But  then 
I  oughtn't  to  be  worried.  .  . " 

After  that,  she  noticed,  though  he  was  as  charming 
as  ever,  he  behaved  as  if  the  case  were  closed.  He  had 
apparently  decided  that  his  arguments  were  unintel 
ligible  to  her,  and  under  all  his  ardour  she  felt  the 
difference  made  by  the  discovery.  It  did  not  make  him 
less  kind,  but  it  evidently  made  her  less  important; 
and  she  had  the  half -frightened  sense  that  the  day  she 
ceased  to  please  him  she  would  cease  to  exist  for  him. 
That  day  was  a  long  way  off,  of  course,  but  the  chill 
of  it  had  brushed  her  face;  and  she  was  no  longer 
heedless  of  such  signs.  She  resolved  to  cultivate  all  the 
arts  of  patience  and  compliance,  and  habit  might  have 
helped  them  to  take  root  if  they  had  not  been  nipped 
by  a  new  cataclysm. 

It  was  barely  a  week  ago  that  her  husband  had  been 
called  to  Paris  to  straighten  out  a  fresh  tangle  in  the 
affairs  of  the  troublesome  brother  whose  difficulties 
were  apparently  a  part  of  the  family  tradition.  Ray 
mond's  letters  had  been  hurried,  his  telegrams  brief 
and  contradictory,  and  now,  as  Undine  stood  watching 
for  the  brougham  that  was  to  bring  him  from  the  sta- 
[496] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

tion,  she  had  the  sense  that  with  his  arrival  all  her 
vague  fears  would  be  confirmed.  There  would  be  more 
money  to  pay  out,  of  coursfe — since  the  funds  that 
could  not  be  found  for  her  just  needs  were  appar 
ently  always  forthcoming  to  settle  Hubert's  scandalous 
prodigalities — and  that  meant  a  longer  perspective  of 
solitude  at  Saint  Desert,  and  a  fresh  pretext  for  post 
poning  the  hospitalities  that  were  to  follow  on  their 
period  of  mourning. 

The  brougham — a  vehicle  as  massive  and  lumber 
ing  as  the  pair  that  drew  it — presently  rolled  into 
the  court,  and  Raymond's  sable  figure  (she  had  never 
before  seen  a  man  travel  in  such  black  clothes)  sprang 
up  the  steps  to  the  door.  Whenever  Undine  saw  him 
after  an  absence  she  had  a  curious  sense  of  his  coming 
back  from  unknown  distances  and  not  belonging  to 
her  or  to  any  state  of  things  she  understood.  Then 
habit  reasserted  itself,  and  she  began  to  think  of  him 
again  with  a  querulous  familiarity.  But  she  had  learned 
to  hide  her  feelings,  and  as  he  came  in  she  put  up  her 
face  for  a  kiss. 

"Yes — everything's  settled "  his  embrace  ex 
pressed  the  satisfaction  of  the  man  returning  from 
an  accomplished  task  to  the  joys  of  his  fireside. 

"Settled?"  Her  face  kindled.  "Without  your  hav 
ing  to  pay?" 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  shrug.  "Of  course  I've  had 
to  pay.  Did  you  suppose  Hubert's  creditors  would  be 
put  off  with  vanilla  eclairs?" 
[4971 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Oh,  if  that's  what  you  mean — if  Hubert  has  only 
to  wire  you  at  any  time  to  be  sure  of  his  affairs  being 
settled !" 

She  saw  his  lips  narrow  and  a  line  come  out  between 
his  eyes.  "Wouldn't  it  be  a  happy  thought  to  tell 
them  to  bring  tea?"  he  suggested. 

"In  the  library,  then.  It's  so  cold  here — and  the 
tapestries  smell  so  of  rain." 

He  paused  a  moment  to  scrutinize  the  long  walls, 
on  which  the  fabulous  blues  and  pinks  of  the  great 
Boucher  series  looked  as  livid  as  withered  roses.  "I  sup 
pose  they  ought  to  be  taken  down  and  aired,"  he  said. 

She  thought:  "In  this  air — much  good  it  would  do 
them!"  But  she  had  already  repented  her  outbreak 
about  Hubert,  and  she  followed  her  husband  into  the 
library  with  the  resolve  not  to  let  him  see  her  annoy 
ance.  Compared  with  the  long  grey  gallery  the  library, 
with  its  brown  walls  of  books,  looked  warm  and  home 
like,  and  Raymond  seemed  to  feel  the  influence  of  the 
softer  atmosphere.  He  turned  to  his  wife  and  put  his 
arm  about  her. 

"I  know  it's  been  a  trial  to  you,  dearest;  but  this 
is  the  last  time  I  shall  have  to  pull  the  poor  boy  out." 

In  spite  of  herself  she  laughed  incredulously:  Hu 
bert's  "last  times"  were  a  household  word. 

But  when  tea  had  been  brought,   and  they  were 

alone  over  the  fire,  Raymond  unfolded  the  amazing 

sequel.  Hubert  had  found  an  heiress,  Hubert  was  to  be 

married,   and  henceforth  the  business  of  paying  his 

[4981 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

debts  (which  might  be  counted  on  to  recur  as  inevita 
bly  as  the  changes  of  the  seasons)  would  devolve  on 
his  American  bride — the  charming  Miss  Looty  Arling 
ton,  whom  Raymond  had  remained  over  in  Paris  to 
meet. 

"An  American?  He's  marrying  an  American?"  Un 
dine  wavered  between  wrath  and  satisfaction.  She  felt 
a  flash  of  resentment  at  any  other  intruder's  venturing 
upon  her  territory — ("Looty  Arlington?  Who  is  she? 
What  a  name!") — but  it  was  quickly  superseded  by 
the  relief  of  knowing  that  henceforth,  as  Raymond 
said,  Hubert's  debts  would  be  some  one  else's  business. 
Then  a  third  consideration  prevailed.  "But  if  he's  en 
gaged  to  a  rich  girl,  why  on  earth  do  we  have  to  pull 
him  out?" 

Her  husband  explained  that  no  other  course  was 
possible.  Though  General  Arlington  was  immensely 
wealthy,  ("her  father's  a  general — a  General  Manager, 
whatever  that  may  be,")  he  had  exacted  what  he  called 
"a  clean  slate"  from  his  future  son-in-law,  and  Hu 
bert's  creditors  (the  boy  was  such  a  donkey!)  had  in 
their  possession  certain  papers  that  made  it  possible 
for  them  to  press  for  immediate  payment. 

"Your  compatriots'  views  on  such  matters  are  so 
rigid — and  it's  all  to  their  credit — that  the  marriage 
would  have  fallen  through  at  once  if  the  least  hint  of 
Hubert's  mess  had  got  out — and  then  we  should  have 
had  him  on  our  hands  for  life." 
[499] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Yes — from  that  point  of  view  it  was  doubtless  best 
to  pay  up;  but  Undine  obscurely  wished  that  their 
doing  so  had  not  incidentally  helped  an  unknown  com 
patriot  to  what  the  American  papers  were  no  doubt  al 
ready  announcing  as  "another  brilliant  foreign  al 
liance." 

"Where  on  earth  did  your  brother  pick  up  anybody 
respectable?  Do  you  know  where  her  people  come  from? 
I  suppose  she's  perfectly  awful,"  she  broke  out  with  a 
sudden  escape  of  irritation. 

"I  believe  Hubert  made  her  acquaintance  at  a 
skating  rink.  They  come  from  some  new  state — the 
general  apologized  for  its  not  yet  being  on  the  map, 
but  seemed  surprised  I  hadn't  heard  of  it.  He  said  it 
was  already  known  as  one  of  'the  divorce  states/ 
and  the  principal  city  had,  in  consequence,  a  very 
agreeable  society.  La  petite  n'est  vraiment  pas  trop  mal" 

"I  daresay  not!  We're  all  good-looking.  But  she 
must  be  horribly  common." 

Raymond  seemed  sincerely  unable  to  formulate  a 
judgment.  "My  dear,  you  have  your  own  customs.  .  ." 

"Oh,  I  know  we're  all  alike  to  you!"  It  was  one  of 
her  grievances  that  he  never  attempted  to  discriminate 
between  Americans.  "You  see  no  difference  between 
me  and  a  girl  one  gets  engaged  to  at  a  skating  rink!" 

He  evaded  the  challenge  by  rejoining:  "Miss  Arling 
ton's  burning  to  know  you.  She  says  she's  heard  a 
great  deal  about  you,  and  Hubert  wants  to  bring  her 
[500] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

down  next  week.  I  think  we'd  better  do  what  we 
can." 

"  Of  course."  But  Undine  was  still  absorbed  in  the  eco 
nomic  aspect  of  the  case.  "  If  they're  as  rich  as  you  say, 
I  suppose  Hubert  means  to  pay  you  back  by  and  bye?" 

"Naturally.  It's  all  arranged.  He's  given  me  a  paper." 
He  drew  her  hands  into  his.  "  You  see  we've  every  reason 
to  be  kind  to  Miss  Arlington." 

"Oh,  I'll  be  as  kind  as  you  like!"  She  brightened  at 
the  prospect  of  repayment.  Yes,  they  would  ask  the 
girl  down.  .  .  She  leaned  a  little  nearer  to  her  husband. 
"But  then  after  a  while  we  shall  be  a  good  deal  better 
off — especially,  as  you  say,  with  no  more  of  Hubert's 
debts  to  worry  us."  And  leaning  back  far  enough  to 
give  her  upward  smile,  she  renewed  her  plea  for  the 
premier  in  the  Hotel  de  Chelles:  "Because,  really,  you 
know,  as  the  head  of  the  house  you  ought  to " 

"Ah,  my  dear,  as  the  head  of  the  house  I've  so  many 
obligations;  and  one  of  them  is  not  to  miss  a  good 
stroke  of  business  when  it  comes  my  way." 

Her  hands  slipped  from  his  shoulders  and  she  drew 
back.  "What  do  you  mean  by  a  good  stroke  of  busi 
ness?" 

"Why,  an  incredible  piece  of  luck — it's  what  kept 
me  on  so  long  in  Paris.  Miss  Arlington's  father  was  look 
ing  for  an  apartment  for  the  young  couple,  and  I've 
let  him  the  premier  for  twelve  years  on  the  understand 
ing  that  he  puts  electric  light  and  heating  into  the 
[501] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

whole  hotel.  It's  a  wonderful  chance,  for  of  course  we 
all  benefit  by  it  as  much  as  Hubert." 

"A  wonderful  chance  .  .  .  benefit  by  it  as  much  as 
Hubert!"  He  seemed  to  be  speaking  a  strange  lan 
guage  in  which  familiar-sounding  syllables  meant 
something  totally  unknown.  Did  he  really  think  she 
was  going  to  coop  herself  up  again  in  their  cramped 
quarters  while  Hubert  and  his  skating-rink  bride 
luxuriated  overhead  in  the  coveted  premier?  All  the 
resentments  that  had  been  accumulating  in  her  during 
the  long  baffled  months  since  her  marriage  broke  into 
speech.  "It's  extraordinary  of  you  to  do  such  a  thing 
without  consulting  me!" 

"Without  consulting  you?  But,  my  dear  child, 
you've  always  professed  the  most  complete  indiffer 
ence  to  business  matters — you've  frequently  begged 
me  not  to  bore  you  with  them.  You  may  be  sure  I've 
acted  on  the  best  advice;  and  my  mother,  whose  head 
is  as  good  as  a  man's,  thinks  I've  made  a  remarkably 
good  arrangement." 

"I  daresay — but  I'm  not  always  thinking  about 
money,  as  you  are." 

As  she  spoke  she  had  an  ominous  sense  of  impending 
peril;  but  she  was  too  angry  to  avoid  even  the  risks 
she  saw.  To  her  surprise  Raymond  put  his  arm  about 
her  with  a  smile.  "There  are  many  reasons  why  I  have 
to  think  about  money.  One  is  that  you  don't;  and  an 
other  is  that  I  must  look  out  for  the  future  of  our  son." 
[502] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Undine  flushed  to  the  forehead.  She  had  grown  ac 
customed  to  such  allusions  and  the  thought  of  having 
a  child  no  longer  filled  her  with  the  resentful  terror 
she  had  felt  before  Paul's  birth.  She  had  been  insen 
sibly  influenced  by  a  different  point  of  view,  perhaps 
also  by  a  difference  in  her  own  feeling;  and  the  vision 
of  herself  as  the  mother  of  the  future  Marquis  de  Chelles 
was  softened  to  happiness  by  the  thought  of  giving 
Raymond  a  son.  But  all  these  lightly-rooted  senti 
ments  went  down  in  the  rush  of  her  resentment,  and 
she  freed  herself  with  a  petulant  movement.  "Oh,  my 
dear,  you'd  better  leave  it  to  your  brother  to  perpetu 
ate  the  race.  There'll  be  more  room  for  nurseries  in 
their  apartment!" 

She  waited  a  moment,  quivering  with  the  expecta 
tion  of  her  husband's  answer;  then,  as  none  came  except 
the  silent  darkening  of  his  face,  she  walked  to  the  door 
and  turned  round  to  fling  back:  "Of  course  you  can 
do  what  you  like  with  your  own  house,  and  make  any 
arrangements  that  suit  your  family,  without  consulting 
me;  but  you  needn't  think  I'm  ever  going  back  to  live 
in  that  stuffy  little  hole,  with  Hubert  and  his  wife 
splurging  round  on  top  of  our  heads!" 

"Ah "  said  Raymond  de  Chelles  in  a  low  voice. 


503] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 


XXXIX 

UNDINE  did  not  fulfil  her  threat.  The  month  of 
May  saw  her  back  in  the  rooms  she  had  declared 
she  would  never  set  foot  in,  and  after  her  long  sojourn 
among  the  echoing  vistas  of  Saint  Desert  the  exiguity 
of  her  Paris  quarters  seemed  like  cosiness. 

In  the  interval  many  things  had  happened.  Hu 
bert,  permitted  by  his  anxious  relatives  to  anticipate 
the  term  of  the  family  mourning,  had  been  showily 
and  expensively  united  to  his  heiress;  the  Hotel  de 
Chelles  had  been  piped,  heated  and  illuminated  in 
accordance  with  the  bride's  requirements;  and  the 
young  couple,  not  content  with  these  utilitarian  changes 
had  moved  doors,  opened  windows,  torn  down  par 
titions,  and  given  over  the  great  trophied  and  pilastered 
dining-room  to  a  decorative  painter  with  a  new  theory 
of  the  human  anatomy.  Undine  had  silently  assisted  at 
this  spectacle,  and  at  the  sight  of  the  old  Marquise's 
abject  acquiescence;  she  had  seen  the  Duchesse  de 
Dordogne  and  the  Princesse  Estradina  go  past  her 
door  to  visit  Hubert's  premier  and  marvel  at  the  Amer 
ican  bath-tubs  and  the  Annamite  bric-a-brac;  and  she 
had  been  present,  with  her  husband,  at  the  banquet  at 
which  Hubert  had  revealed  to  the  astonished  Faubourg 
the  prehistoric  episodes  depicted  on  his  dining-room 
walls.  She  had  accepted  all  these  necessities  with  the 
[5041 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

stoicism  which  the  last  months  had  developed  in  her; 
for  more  and  more,  as  the  days  passed,  she  felt  herself 
in  the  grasp  of  circumstances  stronger  than  any  effort  \ 
she  could  oppose  to  them.  The  very  absence  of  external 
pressure,  of  any  tactless  assertion  of  authority  on  her 
husband's  part,  intensified  the  sense  of  her  helplessness. 
He  simply  left  it  to  her  to  infer  that,  important  as  she 
might  be  to  him  in  certain  ways,  there  were  others  in 
which  she  did  not  weigh  a  feather. 

Their  outward  relations  had  not  changed  since  her 
outburst  on  the  subject  of  Hubert's  marriage.  That  in 
cident  had  left  her  half-ashamed,  half-frightened  at 
her  behaviour,  and  she  had  tried  to  atone  for  it  by  the 
indirect  arts  that  were  her  nearest  approach  to  acknowl 
edging  herself  in  the  wrong.  Raymond  met  her  advances 
with  a  good  grace,  and  they  lived  through  the  rest  of 
the  winter  on  terms  of  apparent  understanding.  When 
the  spring  approached  it  was  he  who  suggested  that, 
since  his  mother  had  consented  to  Hubert's  marrying 
before  the  year  of  mourning  was  over,  there  was  really 
no  reason  why  they  should  not  go  up  to  Paris  as  usual; 
and  she  was  surprised  at  the  readiness  with  which  he 
prepared  to  accompany  her. 

A  year  earlier  she  would  have  regarded  this  as  an 
other  proof  of  her  power;  but  she  now  drew  her  in 
ferences  less  quickly.  Raymond  was  as  "lovely"  to 
her  as  ever;  but  more  than  once,  during  their  months 
in  the  country,  she  had  had  a  startled  sense  of  not 
U051 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

giving  him  all  he  expected  of  her.  She  had  admired 
him,  before  their  marriage,  as  a  model  of  social  dis 
tinction;  during  the  honeymoon  he  had  been  the  most 
ardent  of  lovers;  and  with  their  settling  down  at  Saint 
Desert  she  had  prepared  to  resign  herself  to  the  society 
of  a  country  gentleman  absorbed  in  sport  and  agri 
culture.  But  Raymond,  to  her  surprise,  had  again  de 
veloped  a  disturbing  resemblance  to  his  predecessor. 
During  the  long  winter  afternoons,  after  he  had  gone 
over  his  accounts  with  the  bailiff,  or  written  his  busi 
ness  letters,  he  took  to  dabbling  with  a  paint-box,  or 
picking  out  new  scores  at  the  piano;  after  dinner,  when 
they  went  to  the  library,  he  seemed  to  expect  to  read 
aloud  to  her  from  the  reviews  and  papers  he  was  al 
ways  receiving;  and  when  he  had  discovered  her  in 
ability  to  fix  her  attention  he  fell  into  the  way  of  ab 
sorbing  himself  in  one  of  the  old  brown  books  with 
which  the  room  was  lined.  At  first  he  tried — as  Ralph 
had  done — to  tell  her  about  what  he  was  reading  or 
what  was  happening  in  the  world;  but  her  sense  of 
inadequacy  made  her  slip  away  to  other  subjects, 
and  little  by  little  their  talk  died  down  to  monosyl 
lables. 

Was  it  possible  that,  in  spite  of  his  books,  the  even 
ings  seemed  as  long  to  Raymond  as  to  her,  and  that  he 
had  suggested  going  back  to  Paris  because  he  was 
bored  at  Saint  Desert?  Bored  as  she  was  herself,  she 
resented  his  not  finding  her  company  all-sufficient,  and 
[506] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

was  mortified  by  the  discovery  that  there  were  regions 
of  his  life  she  could  not  enter. 

But  once  back  in  Paris  she  had  less  time  for  intro 
spection,  and  Raymond  less  for  books.  They  resumed 
their  dispersed  and  busy  life,  and  in  spite  of  Hubert's 
ostentatious  vicinity,  of  the  perpetual  lack  of  money, 
and  of  Paul's  innocent  encroachments  on  her  freedom, 
Undine,  once  more  in  her  element,  ceased  to  brood  upon 
her  grievances.  She  enjoyed  going  about  with  her  hus 
band,  whose  presence  at  her  side  was  distinctly  ornamen 
tal.  He  seemed  to  have  grown  suddenly  younger  and 
more  animated,  and  when  she  saw  other  women  looking 
at  him  she  remembered  how  distinguished  he  was.  It 
amused  her  to  have  him  in  her  train,  and  driving  about 
with  him  to  dinners  and  dances,  waiting  for  him  on 
flower-decked  landings,  or  pushing  at  his  side  through 
blazing  theatre-lobbies,  answered  to  her  inmost  ideal 
of  domestic  intimacy. 

He  seemed  disposed  to  allow  her  more  liberty  than 
before,  and  it  was  only  now  and  then  that  he  let  drop  a 
brief  reminder  of  the  conditions  on  which  it  was  ac 
corded.  She  was  to  keep  certain  people  at  a  distance, 
she  was  not  to  cheapen  herself  by  being  seen  at  vulgar 
restaurants  and  tea-rooms,  she  was  to  join  with  him 
in  fulfilling  certain  family  obligations  (going  to  a  good 
many  dull  dinners  among  the  number);  but  in  other 
respects  she  was  free  to  fill  her  days  as  she  pleased. 

"Not  that  it  leaves  me  much  time,"  she  admitted 
to  Madame  de  Trezac;  "what  with  going  to  see  his 
[507] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

mother  every  day,  and  never  missing  one  of  his  sisters' 
jours,  and  showing  myself  at  the  Hotel  de  Dordogne 
whenever  the  Duchess  gives  a  pay-up  party  to  the 
stuffy  people  Lili  Estradina  won't  be  bothered  with, 
there  are  days  when  I  never  lay  eyes  on  Paul,  and 
barely  have  time  to  be  waved  and  manicured;  but, 
apart  from  that,  Raymond's  really  much  nicer  and  less 
fussy  than  he  was." 

Undine,  as  she  grew  older,  had  developed  her  mother's 
craving  for  a  confidante,  and  Madame  de  Trezac  had 
succeeded  in  that  capacity  to  Mabel  Lipscomb  and 
Bertha  Shallum. 

"Less  fussy?"  Madame  de  Trezac's  long  nose 
lengthened  thoughtfully.  "H'm — are  you  sure  that's  a 
good  sign?" 

Undine  stared  and  laughed.  "Oh,  my  dear,  you're 
so  quaint!  Why,  nobody's  jealous  any  more." 

"No;  that's  the  worst  of  it."  Madame  de  Trezac 
pondered.  "It's  a  thousand  pities  you  haven't  got  a 
son." 

"Yes;  I  wish  we  had."  Undine  stood  up,  impatient 
to  end  the  conversation.  Since  she  had  learned  that  her 
continued  childlessness  was  regarded  by  every  one  about 
her  as  not  only  unfortunate  but  somehow  vaguely  de 
rogatory  to  her,  she  had  genuinely  begun  to  regret  it; 
and  any  allusion  to  the  subject  disturbed  her. 

"Especially,"  Madame  de  Trezac  continued,  "as 
Hubert's  wife " 

"Oh,  if  that's  all  they  want,  it's  a  pity  Raymond 
[5081 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

didn't  marry  Hubert's  wife,"  Undine  flung  back;  and 
on  the  stairs  she  murmured  to  herself:  "Nettie  has  been 
talking  to  my  mother-in-law." 

But  this  explanation  did  not  quiet  her,  and  that 
evening,  as  she  and  Raymond  drove  back  together 
from  a  party,  she  felt  a  sudden  impulse  to  speak.  Sit 
ting  close  to  him  in  the  darkness  of  the  carriage,  it 
ought  to  have  been  easy  for  her  to  find  the  needed 
word;  but  the  barrier  of  his  indifference  hung  between 
them,  and  street  after  street  slipped  by,  and  the  span 
gled  blackness  of  the  river  unrolled  itself  beneath 
their  wheels,  before  she  leaned  over  to  touch  his  hand. 

"What  is  it,  my  dear?" 

She  had  not  yet  found  the  word,  and  already  his 
tone  told  her  she  was  too  late.  A  year  ago,  if  she  had 
slipped  her  hand  in  his,  she  would  not  have  had  that 
answer. 

"Your  mother  blames  me  for  our  not  having  a  child. 
Everybody  thinks  it's  my  fault." 

He  paused  before  answering,  and  she  sat  watching 
his  shadowy  profile  against  the  passing  lamps. 

"My  mother's  ideas  are  old-fashioned;  and  I  don't 
know  that  it's  anybody's  business  but  yours  and 
mine." 

"Yes,  but " 

"Here  we  are."  The  brougham  was  turning  under 
the  archway  of  the  hotel,  and  the  light  of  Hubert's 
tall  windows  fell  across  the  dusky  court.  Raymond 
[509] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

helped  her  out,  and  they  mounted  to  their  door  by  the 
stairs  which  Hubert  had  recarpeted  in  velvet,  with  a 
marble  nymph  lurking  in  the  azaleas  on  the  landing. 

In  the  antechamber  Raymond  paused  to  take  her 
cloak  from  her  shoulders,  and  his  eyes  rested  on  her 
with  a  faint  smile  of  approval. 

"You  never  looked  better;  your  dress  is  extremely 
becoming.  Good-night,  my  dear,"  he  said,  kissing  her 
hand  as  he  turned  away. 

Undine  kept  this  incident  to  herself:  her  wounded 
pride  made  her  shrink  from  confessing  it  even  to  Ma 
dame  de  Trezac.  She  was  sure  Raymond  would  "come 
back";  Ralph  always  had,  to  the  last.  During  their  re 
maining  weeks  in  Paris  she  reassured  herself  with  the 
thought  that  once  they  were  back  at  Saint  Desert  she 
would  easily  regain  her  lost  hold;  and  when  Raymond 
suggested  their  leaving  Paris  she  acquiesced  without 
a  protest.  But  at  Saint  Desert  she  seemed  no  nearer 
to  him  than  in  Paris.  He  continued  to  treat  her  with 
unvarying  amiability,  but  he  seemed  wholly  absorbed 
in  the  management  of  the  estate,  in  his  books,  his 
sketching  and  his  music.  He  had  begun  to  interest 
himself  in  politics  and  had  been  urged  to  stand  for  his 
department.  This  necessitated  frequent  displacements : 
trips  to  Beaune  or  Dijon  and  occasional  absences  in 
Paris.  Undine,  when  he  was  away,  was  not  left  alone, 
for  the  dowager  Marquise  had  established  herself  at 
[5101 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Saint  Desert  for  the  summer,  and  relays  of  broth 
ers  and  sisters-in-law,  aunts,  cousins  and  ecclesiastical 
friends  and  connections  succeeded  each  other  under 
its  capacious  roof.  Only  Hubert  and  his  wife  were 
absent.  They  had  taken  a  villa  at  Deauville,  and  in  the 
morning  papers  Undine  followed  the  chronicle  of  Hu 
bert's  polo  scores  and  of  the  Countess  Hubert's  racing 
toilets. 

The  days  crawled  on  with  a  benumbing  sameness. 
The  old  Marquise  and  the  other  ladies  of  the  party  sat 
on  the  terrace  with  their  needle-work,  the  cure  or  one 
of  the  visiting  uncles  read  aloud  the  Journal  des  DSbats 
and  prognosticated  dark  things  of  the  Republic,  Paul 
scoured  the  park  and  despoiled  the  kitchen-garden  with 
the  other  children  of  the  family,  the  inhabitants  of 
the  adjacent  chateaux  drove  over  to  call,  and  occa 
sionally  the  ponderous  pair  were  harnessed  to  a  landau 
as  lumbering  as  the  brougham,  and  the  ladies  of  Saint 
Desert  measured  the  dusty  kilometres  between  them 
selves  and  their  neighbours. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  Undine  had  seriously  paused 
to  consider  the  conditions  of  her  new  life,  and  as  the 
days  passed  she  began  to  understand  that  so  they 
would  continue  to  succeed  each  other  till  the  end. 
Every  one  about  her  took  it  for  granted  that  as  long 
as  she  lived  she  would  spend  ten  months  of  every  year 
at  Saint  Desert  and  the  remaining  two  in  Paris.  Of 
course,  if  health  required  it,  she  might  go  to  les  eaux 
[5111 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

with  her  husband;  but  the  old  Marquise  was  very 
doubtful  as  to  the  benefit  of  a  cburse  of  waters,  and  her 
uncle  the  Duke  and  her  cousin  the  Canon  shared  her 
view.  In  the  case  of  young  married  women,  especially, 
the  unwholesome  excitement  of  the  modern  watering- 
place  was  more  than  likely  to  do  away  with  the  possible 
benefit  of  the  treatment.  As  to  travel — had  not  Ray 
mond  and  his  wife  been  to  Egypt  and  Asia  Minor  on 
their  wedding- journey?  Such  reckless  enterprise  was 
unheard  of  in  the  annals  of  the  house!  Had  they  not 
spent  days  and  days  in  the  saddle,  and  slept  in  tents 
among  the  Arabs?  (Who  could  tell,  indeed,  whether 
these  imprudences  were  not  the  cause  of  the  disappoint 
ment  which  it  had  pleased  heaven  to  inflict  on  the 
young  couple?)  No  one  in  the  family  had  ever  taken  so 
long  a  wedding-journey.  One  bride  had  gone  to  England 
(even  that  was  considered  extreme),  and  another — the 
artistic  daughter — had  spent  a  week  in  Venice;  which 
certainly  showed  that  they  were  not  behind  the  times, 
and  had  no  old-fashioned  prejudices.  Since  wedding- 
journeys  were  the  fashion,  they  had  taken  them;  but 
who  had  ever  heard  of  travelling  afterward?  What 
could  be  the  possible  object  of  leaving  one's  family, 
one's  habits,  one's  friends?  It  was  natural  that  the 
Americans,  who  had  no  homes,  who  were  born  and  died 
in  hotels,  should  have  contracted  nomadic  habits:  but 
the  new  Marquise  de  Chelles  was  no  longer  an  American, 
and  she  had  Saint  Desert  and  the  Hotel  de  Chelles  to 
[51*1 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

live  in,  as  generations  of  ladies  of  her  name  had  done 
before  her. 

Thus  Undine  beheld  her  future  laid  out  for  her,  not 
directly  and  in  blunt  words,  but  obliquely  and  affably, 
in  the  allusions,  the  assumptions,  the  insinuations  of 
the  amiable  women  among  whom  her  days  were  spent. 
Their  interminable  conversations  were  carried  on  to  the 
click  of  knitting-needles  and  the  rise  and  fall  of  indus 
trious  fingers  above  embroidery-frames;  and  as  Undine 
sat  staring  at  the  lustrous  nails  of  her  idle  hands  she 
felt  that  her  inability  to  occupy  them  was  regarded  as 
one  of  the  chief  causes  of  her  restlessness.  The  innumer 
able  rooms  of  Saint  Desert  were  furnished  with  the 
embroidered  hangings  and  tapestry  chairs  produced  by 
generations  of  diligent  chatelaines,  and  the  untiring 
needles  of  the  old  Marquise,  her  daughters  and  depend 
ents  were  still  steadily  increasing  the  provision. 

It  struck  Undine  as  curious  that  they  should  be 
willing  to  go  on  making  chair-coverings  and  bed-cur 
tains  for  a  house  that  didn't  really  belong  to  them,  and 
that  she  had  a  right  to  pull  about  and  rearrange  as  she 
chose;  but  then  that  was  only  a  part  of  their  whole 
incomprehensible  way  of  regarding  themselves  (in  spite 
of  their  acute  personal  and  parochial  absorptions)  as 
minor  members  of  a  powerful  and  indivisible  whole, 
the  huge  voracious  fetish  they  called  The  Family. 

Notwithstanding  their  very  definite  theories  as  to 
what  Americans  were  and  were  not,  they  were  evidently 
[5131 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

bewildered  at  finding  no  corresponding  sense  of  soli 
darity  in  Undine;  and  little  Paul's  rootlessness,  his 
lack  of  all  local  and  linear  ties,  made  them  (for  all  the 
charm  he  exercised)  regard  him  with  something  of  the 
shyness  of  pious  Christians  toward  an  elfin  child.  But 
though  mother  and  child  gave  them  a  sense  of  insu 
perable  strangeness,  it  plainly  never  occurred  to  them 
that  both  would  not  be  gradually  subdued  to  the  cus 
toms  of  Saint  Desert.  Dynasties  had  fallen,  institu 
tions  changed,  manners  and  morals,  alas,  deplorably  de 
clined;  but  as  far  back  as  memory  went,  the  ladies  of 
the  line  of  Chelles  had  always  sat  at  their  needle-work 
on  the  terrace  of  Saint  Desert,  while  the  men  of  the 
house  lamented  the  corruption  of  the  government  and 
the  cure  ascribed  the  unhappy  state  of  the  country  to 
the  decline  of  religious  feeling  and  the  rise  in  the  cost 
of  living.  It  was  inevitable  that,  in  the  course  of  time, 
the  new  Marquise  should  come  to  understand  the  fun 
damental  necessity  of  these  things  being  as  they  were; 
and  meanwhile  the  forbearance  of  her  husband's  family 
exercised  itself,  with  the  smiling  discretion  of  their 
race,  through  the  long  succession  of  uneventful  days. 
Once,  in  September,  this  routine  was  broken  in  upon 
by  the  unannounced  descent  of  a  flock  of  motors  bear 
ing  the  Princess  Estradina  and  a  chosen  band  from  one 
watering-place  to  another.  Raymond  was  away  at  the 
time,  but  family  loyalty  constrained  the  old  Marquise 
to  welcome  her  kinswoman  and  the  latter 's  friends; 
[514] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  Undine  once  more  found  herself  immersed  in  the 
world  from  which  her  marriage  had  removed  her. 

The  Princess,  at  first,  seemed  totally  to  have  for 
gotten  their  former  intimacy,  and  Undine  was  made  to 
feel  that  in  a  life  so  variously  agitated  the  episode 
could  hardly  have  left  a  trace.  But  the  night  before  her 
departure  the  incalculable  Lili,  with  one  of  her  sudden 
changes  of  humour,  drew  her  former  friend  into  her 
bedroom  and  plunged  into  an  exchange  of  confidences. 
She  naturally  unfolded  her  own  history  first,  and  it  was 
so  packed  with  incident  that  the  courtyard  clock  had 
struck  two  before  she  turned  her  attention  to  Undine. 

"My  dear,  you're  handsomer  than  ever;  only  per 
haps  a  shade  too  stout.  Domestic  bliss,  I  suppose? 
Take  care!  You  need  an  emotion,  a  drama.  .  .  You 
Americans  are  really  extraordinary.  You  appear  to 
live  on  change  and  excitement;  and  then  suddenly  a 
man  comes  along  and  claps  a  ring  on  your  finger,  and 
you  never  look  through  it  to  see  what's  going  on  out 
side.  Aren't  you  ever  the  least  bit  bored?  Why  do  I 
never  see  anything  of  you  any  more?  I  suppose  it's 
the  fault  of  my  venerable  aunt — she's  never  forgiven 
me  for  having  a  better  time  than  her  daughters.  How 
can  I  help  it  if  I  don't  look  like  the  cure's  umbrella?  I 
daresay  she  owes  you  the  same  grudge.  But  why  do 
you  let  her  coop  you  up  here?  It's  a  thousand  pities 
you  haven't  had  a  child.  They'd  all  treat  you  differ 
ently  if  you  had." 

[515] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

It  was  the  same  perpetually  reiterated  condolence; 
and  Undine  flushed  with  anger  as  she  listened.  Why 
indeed  had  she  let  herself  be  cooped  up?  She  could 
not  have  answered  the  Princess's  question:  she  merely 
felt  the  impossibility  of  breaking  through  the  myste 
rious  web  of  traditions,  conventions,  prohibitions  that 
enclosed  her  in  their  impenetrable  net-work.  But  her 
vanity  suggested  the  obvious  pretext,  and  she  murmured 
with  a  laugh:  "I  didn't  know  Raymond  was  going  to 
be  so  jealous  - 

The  Princess  stared.  "  Is  it  Raymond  who  keeps  you 
shut  up  here?  And  what  about  his  trips  to  Dijon?  And 
what  do  you  suppose  he  does  with  himself  when  he 
runs  up  to  Paris?  Politics?"  She  shrugged  ironically. 
"  Politics  don't  occupy  a  man  after  midnight.  Raymond 
jealous  of  you?  A  h,  merci!  My  dear,  it's  what  I  always 
say  when  people  talk  to  me  about  fast  Americans: 
you're  the  only  innocent  women  left  in  the  world.  .  ." 


XL 


ATER   the    Princess    Estradina's   departure,  the 
days  at  Saint  Desert  succeeded  each  other  indis- 
tinguishably;   and  more  and  more,  as  they  passed,  Un 
dine  felt  herself  drawn  into  the  slow  strong  current 
already  fed  by  so  many  tributary  lives.  Some  spell 
she  could  not  have  named  seemed  to  emanate  from  the 
old  house  which  had  so  long  been  the  custodian  of  an 
[516] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

unbroken  tradition:  things  had  happened  there  in  the 
same  way  for  so  many  generations  that  to  try  to  alter 
them  seemed  as  vain  as  to  contend  with  the  elements. 

Winter  came  and  went,  and  once  more  the  calendar 
marked  the  first  days  of  spring;  but  though  the  horse- 
chestnuts  of  the  Champs  Elysees  were  budding  snow 
still  lingered  in  the  grass  drives  of  Saint  Desert  and 
along  the  ridges  of  the  hills  beyond  the  park.  Some 
times,  as  Undine  looked  out  of  the  windows  of  the 
Boucher  gallery,  she  felt  as  if  her  eyes  had  never  rested 
on  any  other  scene.  Even  her  occasional  brief  trips 
to  Paris  left  no  lasting  trace :  the  life  of  the  vivid  streets 
faded  to  a  shadow  as  soon  as  the  black  and  white 
horizon  of  Saint  Desert  closed  in  on  her  again. 

Though  the  afternoons  were  still  cold  she  had  lately 
taken  to  sitting  in  the  gallery.  The  smiling  scenes  on 
its  walls  and  the  tall  screens  which  broke  its  length 
made  it  more  habitable  than  the  drawing-rooms  be 
yond;  but  her  chief  reason  for  preferring  it  was  the 
satisfaction  she  found  in  having  fires  lit  in  both  the 
monumental  chimneys  that  faced  each  other  down  its 
long  perspective.  This  satisfaction  had  its  source  in 
the  old  Marquise's  disapproval.  Never  before  in  the 
history  of  Saint  Desert  had  the  consumption  of  fire 
wood  exceeded  a  certain  carefully-calculated  measure; 
but  since  Undine  had  been  in  authority  this  allowance 
had  been  doubled.  If  any  one  had  told  her,  a  year 
earlier,  that  one  of  the  chief  distractions  of  her  new  life 
[517] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

would  be  to  invent  ways  of  annoying  her  mother-in- 
law,  she  would  have  laughed  at  the  idea  of  wasting  her 
time  on  such  trifles.  But  she  found  herself  with  a 
great  deal  of  time  to  waste,  and  with  a  fierce  desire  to 
spend  it  in  upsetting  the  immemorial  customs  of  Saint 
Desert.  Her  husband  had  mastered  her  in  essentials, 
but  she  had  discovered  innumerable  small  ways  of 
irritating  and  hurting  him,  and  one — and  not  the  least 
effectual — was  to  do  anything  that  went  counter  to 
his  mother's  prejudices.  It  was  not  that  he  always 
shared  her  views,  or  was  a  particularly  subservient 
son;  but  it  seemed  to  be  one  of  his  fundamental  prin 
ciples  that  a  man  should  respect  his  mother's  wishes, 
and  see  to  it  that  his  household  respected  them.  All 
Frenchmen  of  his  class  appeared  to  share  this  view, 
and  to  regard  it  as  beyond  discussion:  it  was  based  on 
something  so  much  more  immutable  than  personal 
feeling  that  one  might  even  hate  one's  mother  and  yet 
insist  that  her  ideas  as  to  the  consumption  of  fire-wood 
should  be  regarded. 

The  old  Marquise,  during  the  cold  weather,  always 
sat  in  her  bedroom;  and  there,  between  the  tapestried 
four-poster  and  the  fireplace,  the  family  grouped  itself 
around  the  ground-glass  of  her  single  carcel  lamp.  In 
the  evening,  if  there  were  visitors,  a  fire  was  lit  in  the 
library;  otherwise  the  family  again  sat  about  the  Mar 
quise's  lamp  till  the  footman  came  in  at  ten  with 
tisane  and  biscuits  de  Reims;  after  which  every  one 
[5181 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

bade  the  dowager  good  night  and  scattered  down  the 
corridors  to  chill  distances  marked  by  tapers  floating 
in  cups  of  oil. 

Since  Undine's  coming  the  library  fire  had  never 
been  allowed  to  go  out;  and  of  late,  after  experiment 
ing  with  the  two  drawing-rooms  and  the  so-called 
"study"  where  Raymond  kept  his  guns  and  saw  the 
bailiff,  she  had  selected  the  gallery  as  the  most  suitable 
place  for  the  new  and  unfamiliar  ceremony  of  after 
noon  tea.  Afternoon  refreshments  had  never  before 
been  served  at  Saint  Desert  except  when  company  was 
expected;  when  they  had  invariably  consisted  in  a 
decanter  of  sweet  port  and  a  plate  of  small  dry  cakes — 
the  kind  that  kept.  That  the  complicated  rites  of  the 
tea-urn,  with  its  offering-up  of  perishable  delicacies, 
should  be  enacted  for  the  sole  enjoyment  of  the  family, 
was  a  thing  so  unheard  of  that  for  a  while  Undine  found 
sufficient  amusement  in  elaborating  the  ceremonial, 
and  in  making  the  ancestral  plate  groan  under  more 
varied  viands;  and  when  this  palled  she  devised  the 
plan  of  performing  the  office  in  the  gallery  and  lighting 
sacrificial  fires  in  both  chimneys. 

She  had  said  to  Raymond,  at  first:  "It's  ridiculous 
that  your  mother  should  sit  in  her  bedroom  all  day. 
She  says  she  does  it  to  save  fires ;  but  if  we  have  a  fire 
downstairs  why  can't  she  let  hers  go  out,  and  come 
down?  I  don't  see  why  I  should  spend  my  life  in  your 
mother's  bedroom." 

[519] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Raymond  made  no  answer,  and  the  Marquise  did, 
in  fact,  let  her  fire  go  out.  But  she  did  not  come  down 
— she  simply  continued  to  sit  upstairs  without  a  fire. 

At  first  this  also  amused  Undine;  then  the  tacit 
criticism  implied  began  to  irritate  her.  She  hoped 
Raymond  would  speak  of  his  mother's  attitude:  she 
had  her  answer  ready  if  he  did!  But  he  made  no  com 
ment,  he  took  no  notice;  her  impulses  of  retaliation 
spent  themselves  against  the  blank  surface  of  his  in 
difference.  He  was  as  amiable,  as  considerate  as  ever; 
as  ready,  within  reason,  to  accede  to  her  wishes  and 
gratify  her  whims.  Once  or  twice,  when  she  suggested 
running  up  to  Paris  to  take  Paul  to  the  dentist,  or  to 
look  for  a  servant,  he  agreed  to  the  necessity  and  went 
up  with  her.  But  instead  of  going  to  an  hotel  they  went 
to  their  apartment,  where  carpets  were  up  and  cur 
tains  down,  and  a  care-taker  prepared  primitive  food 
at  uncertain  hours;  and  Undine's  first  glimpse  of  Hu 
bert's  illuminated  windows  deepened  her  rancour  and 
her  sense  of  helplessness. 

As  Madame  de  Trezac  had  predicted,  Raymond's 
vigilance  gradually  relaxed,  and  during  their  excursions 
to  the  capital  Undine  came  and  went  as  she  pleased. 
But  her  visits  were  too  short  to  permit  of  her  falling 
in  with  the  social  pace,  and  when  she  showed  herself 
among  her  friends  she  felt  countrified  and  out-of -place, 
as  if  even  her  clothes  had  come  from  Saint  Desert. 
Nevertheless  her  dresses  were  more  than  ever  her  chief 
[5201 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

preoccupation:  in  Paris  she  spent  hours  at  the  dress 
maker's,  and  in  the  country  the  arrival  of  a  box  of  new 
gowns  was  the  chief  event  of  the  vacant  days.  But 
there  was  more  bitterness  than  joy  in  the  unpacking, 
and  the  dresses  hung  in  her  wardrobe  like  so  many  un 
fulfilled  promises  of  pleasure,  reminding  her  of  the  days 
at  the  Stentorian  when  she  had  reviewed  other  finery 
with  the  same  cheated  eyes.  In  spite  of  this,  she  mul 
tiplied  her  orders,  writing  up  to  the  dress-makers  for 
patterns,  and  to  the  milliners  for  boxes  of  hats  which 
she  tried  on,  and  kept  for  days,  without  being  able  to 
make  a  choice.  Now  and  then  she  even  sent  her  maid 
up  to  Paris  to  bring  back  great  assortments  of  veils, 
gloves,  flowers  and  laces;  and  after  periods  of  painful 
indecision  she  ended  by  keeping  the  greater  number, 
lest  those  she  sent  back  should  turn  out  to  be  the  ones 
that  were  worn  in  Paris.  She  knew  she  was  spending 
too  much  money,  and  she  had  lost  her  youthful  faith 
in  providential  solutions;  but  she  had  always  had  the 
habit  of  going  out  to  buy  something  when  she  was 
bored,  and  never  had  she  been  in  greater  need  of  such 
solace. 

The  dulness  of  her  life  seemed  to  have  passed  into 
her  blood:  her  complexion  was  less  animated,  her  hair 
less  shining.  The  change  in  her  looks  alarmed  her,  and 
she  scanned  the  fashion-papers  for  new  scents  and 
powders,  and  experimented  in  facial  bandaging,  elec 
tric  massage  and  other  processes  of  renovation.  Odd 
[521] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

atavisms  woke  in  her,  and  she  began  to  pore  over 
patent  medicine  advertisements,  to  send  stamped  en 
velopes  to  beauty  doctors  and  professors  of  physical 
development,  and  to  brood  on  the  advantage  of  con 
sulting  faith-healers,  mind-readers  and  their  kindred 
adepts.  She  even  wrote  to  her  mother  for  the  receipts 
of  some  of  her  grandfather's  forgotten  nostrums,  and 
modified  her  daily  life,  and  her  hours  of  sleeping,  eating 
and  exercise,  in  accordance  with  each  new  experi 
ment. 

Her  constitutional  restlessness  lapsed  into  an  apathy 
like  Mrs.  Spragg's,  and  the  least  demand  on  her  activity 
irritated  her.  But  she  was  beset  by  endless  annoyances : 
bickerings  with  discontented  maids,  the  difficulty  of 
finding  a  tutor  for  Paul,  and  the  problem  of  keeping 
him  amused  and  occupied  without  having  him  too  much 
on  her  hands.  A  great  liking  had  sprung  up  between 
Raymond  and  the  little  boy,  and  during  the  summer 
Paul  was  perpetually  at  his  step-father's  side  in  the 
stables  and  the  park.  But  with  the  coming  of  winter 
Raymond  was  oftener  away,  and  Paul  developed  a 
persistent  cold  that  kept  him  frequently  indoors.  The 
confinement  made  him  fretful  and  exacting,  and  the 
old  Marquise  ascribed  the  change  in  his  behaviour  to 
the  deplorable  influence  of  his  tutor,  a  "laic"  recom 
mended  by  one  of  Raymond's  old  professors.  Raymond 
himself  would  have  preferred  an  abbe:  it  was  in  the 
tradition  of  the  house,  and  though  Paul  was  not  of  the 
[522] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

house  it  seemed  fitting  that  he  should  conform  to  its 
ways.  Moreover,  when  the  married  sisters  came  to 
stay  they  objected  to  having  their  children  exposed  to 
the  tutor's  influence,  and  even  implied  that  Paul's 
society  might  be  contaminating.  But  Undine,  though 
she  had  so  readily  embraced  her  husband's  faith,  stub 
bornly  resisted  the  suggestion  that  she  should  hand 
over  her  son  to  the  Church.  The  tutor  therefore  re 
mained;  but  the  friction  caused  by  his  presence  was  so 
irritating  to  Undine  that  she  began  to  consider  the 
alternative  of  sending  Paul  to  school.  He  was  still  small 
and  tender  for  the  experiment;  but  she  persuaded  her 
self  that  what  he  needed  was  "hardening,"  and  having 
heard  of  a  school  where  fashionable  infancy  was  sub 
jected  to  this  process,  she  entered  into  correspondence 
with  the  master.  His  first  letter  convinced  her  that  his 
establishment  was  just  the  place  for  Paul;  but  the 
second  contained  the  price-list,  and  after  comparing 
it  with  the  tutor's  keep  and  salary  she  wrote  to  say 
that  she  feared  her  little  boy  was  too  young  to  be  sent 
away  from  home. 

Her  husband,  for  some  time  past,  had  ceased  to 
make  any  comment  on  her  expenditure.  She  knew  he 
thought  her  too  extravagant,  and  felt  sure  he  was 
minutely  aware  of  what  she  spent;  for  Saint  Desert 
projected  on  economic  details  a  light  as  different  as 
might  be  from  the  haze  that  veiled  them  in  West  End 
Avenue.  She  therefore  concluded  that  Raymond's  si- 
[523] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

lence  was  intentional,  and  ascribed  it  to  his  having 
shortcomings  of  his  own  to  conceal.  The  Princess  Es- 
tradina's  pleasantry  had  reached  its  mark.  Undine  did 
not  believe  that  her  husband  was  seriously  in  love  with 
another  woman — she  could  not  conceive  that  any  one 
could  tire  of  her  of  whom  she  had  not  first  tired — but 
she  was  humiliated  by  his  indifference,  and  it  was 
easier  to  ascribe  it  to  the  arts  of  a  rival  than  to  any 
deficiency  in  herself.  It  exasperated  her  to  think  that 
he  might  have  consolations  for  the  outward  monotony 
of  his  life,  and  she  resolved  that  when  they  returned  to 
Paris  he  should  see  that  she  was  not  without  similar 
opportunities. 

March,  meanwhile,  was  verging  on  April,  and  still 
he  did  not  speak  of  leaving.  Undine  had  learned  that 
he  expected  to  have  such  decisions  left  to  him,  and  she 
hid  her  impatience  lest  her  showing  it  should  incline 
him  to  delay.  But  one  day,  as  she  sat  at  tea  in  the  gal 
lery,  he  came  in  in  his  riding-clothes  and  said:  "I've 
been  over  to  the  other  side  of  the  mountain.  The 
February  rains  have  weakened  the  dam  of  the  Alette, 
and  the  vineyards  will  be  in  danger  if  we  don't  rebuild 
at  once." 

She  suppressed  a  yawn,  thinking,  as  she  did  so,  how 
dull  he  always  looked  when  he  talked  of  agriculture. 
It  made  him  seem  years  older,  and  she  reflected  with  a 
shiver  that  listening  to  him  probably  gave  her  the  same 
look. 

[5241 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

He  went  on,  as  she  handed  him  his  tea:  "I'm  sorry 
it  should  happen  just  now.  I'm  afraid  I  shall  have  to 
ask  you  to  give  up  your  spring  in  Paris." 

"Oh,  no — no!"  she  broke  out.  A  throng  of  half- 
subdued  grievances  choked  in  her:  she  wanted  to 
burst  into  sobs  like  a  child. 

"I  know  it's  a  disappointment.  But  our  expenses 
have  been  unusually  heavy  this  year." 

"It  seems  to  me  they  always  are.  I  don't  see  why  we 
should  give  up  Paris  because  you've  got  to  make  re 
pairs  to  a  dam.  Isn't  Hubert  ever  going  to  pay  back 
that  money?" 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  mild  surprise.  "But  surely 
you  understood  at  the  time  that  it  won't  be  possible 
till  his  wife  inherits?" 

"Till  General  Arlington  dies,  you  mean?  He  doesn't 
look  much  older  than  you!" 

"You  may  remember  that  I  showed  you  Hubert's 
note.  He  has  paid  the  interest  quite  regularly." 

"That's  kind  of  him!"  She  stood  up,  flaming  with 
rebellion.  "You  can  do  as  you  please;  but  I  mean  to 
go  to  Paris." 

"My  mother  is  not  going.  I  didn't  intend  to  open 
our  apartment." 

"I  understand.  But  I  shall  open  it — that's  all!" 

He  had  risen  too,  and  she  saw  his  face  whiten.  "I 
prefer  that  you  shouldn't  go  without  me." 

"Then  I  shall  go  and  stay  at  the  Nouveau  Luxe 
with  my  American  friends." 
[525] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"That  never!" 

"Why  not?" 

"I  consider  it  unsuitable." 

"Your  considering  it  so  doesn't  prove  it." 

They  stood  facing  each  other,  quivering  with  an 
equal  anger;  then  he  controlled  himself  and  said  in  a 
more  conciliatory  tone:  "You  never  seem  to  see  that 
there  are  necessities " 

"Oh,  neither  do  you — that's  the  trouble.  You  can't 
keep  me  shut  up  here  all  my  life,  and  interfere  with 
everything  I  want  to  do,  just  by  saying  it's  unsuitable." 

"I've  never  interfered  with  your  spending  your 
money  as  you  please." 

It  was  her  turn  to  stare,  sincerely  wondering. 
"Mercy,  I  should  hope  not,  when  you've  always 
grudged  me  every  penny  of  yours!" 

"You  know  it's  not  because  I  grudge  it.  I  would 
gladly  take  you  to  Paris  if  I  had  the  money." 

"You  can  always  find  the  money  to  spend  on  this 
place.  Why  don't  you  sell  it  if  it's  so  fearfully  expen 
sive?" 

"Sell  it?  Sell  Saint  Desert?" 

The  suggestion  seemed  to  strike  him  as  something 
monstrously,  almost  fiendishly  significant :  as  if  her  ran 
dom  word  had  at  last  thrust  into  his  hand  the  clue  to 
their  whole  unhappy  difference.  Without  understand 
ing  this,  she  guessed  it  from  the  change  in  his  face:  it 
was  as  if  a  deadly  solvent  had  suddenly  decomposed  its 
familiar  lines. 

[526] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Well,  why  not?"  His  horror  spurred  her  on.  "You 
might  sell  some  of  the  things  in  it  anyhow.  In  America 
we're  not  ashamed  to  sell  what  we  can't  afford  to 
keep."  Her  eyes  fell  on  the  storied  hangings  at  his  back. 
"Why,  there's  a  fortune  in  this  one  room:  you  could 
get  anything  you  chose  for  those  tapestries.  And  you 
stand  here  and  tell  me  you're  a  pauper!" 

His  glance  followed  hers  to  the  tapestries,  and  then 
returned  to  her  face.  "Ah,  you  don't  understand,"  he 
said. 

"I  understand  that  you  care  for  all  this  old  stuff 
more  than  you  do  for  me,  and  that  you'd  rather  see  me 
unhappy  and  miserable  than  touch  one  of  your  great 
grandfather's  arm-chairs." 

The  colour  came  slowly  back  to  his  face,  but  it 
hardened  into  lines  she  had  never  seen.  He  looked  at 
her  as  though  the  place  where  she  stood  were  empty. 
"You  don't  understand,"  he  said  again. 

XLI 

THE  incident  left  Undine  with  the  baffled  feeling 
of  not  being  able  to   count  on  any  of  her  old 
weapons  of  aggression.  In  all  her  struggles  for  author 
ity  her  sense  of  the  rightfulness  of  her  cause  had  been 
measured  by  her  power  of  making  people  do  as  she 
pleased.  Raymond's  firmness  shook  her  faith  in  her 
own  claims,  and  a  blind  desire  to  wound  and  destroy 
[5271 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

replaced  her  usual  business-like  intentness  on  gaining 
her  end.  But  her  ironies  were  as  ineffectual  as  her  argu 
ments,  and  his  imperviousness  was  the  more  exasper 
ating  because  she  divined  that  some  of  the  things  she 
said  would  have  hurt  him  if  any  one  else  had  said  them : 
it  was  the  fact  of  their  coming  from  her  that  made 
them  innocuous.  Even  when,  at  the  close  of  their 
talk,  she  had  burst  out:  "If  you  grudge  me  everything 
I  care  about  we'd  better  *  separate,"  he  had  merely 
answered  with  a  shrug:  "It's  one  of  the  things  we 
don't  do —  "  and  the  answer  had  been  like  the  slam 
ming  of  an  iron  door  in  her  face. 

An  interval  of  silent  brooding  had  resulted  in  a  re 
action  of  rebellion.  She  dared  not  carry  out  her  threat 
of  joining  her  compatriots  at  the  Nouveau  Luxe:  she 
had  too  clear  a  memory  of  the  results  of  her  former  re 
volt.  But  neither  could  she  submit  to  her  present  fate 
without  attempting  to  make  Raymond  understand  his 
selfish  folly.  She  had  failed  to  prove  it  by  argument, 
but  she  had  an  inherited  faith  in  the  value  of  practical 
demonstration.  If  he  could  be  made  to  see  how  easily 
he  could  give  her  what  she  wanted  perhaps  he  might 
come  round  to  her  view. 

With  this  idea  in  mind,  she  had  gone  up  to  Paris 
for  twenty-four  hours,  on  the  pretext  of  finding  a 
new  nurse  for  Paul;  and  the  steps  then  taken  had 
enabled  her,  on  the  first  occasion,  to  set  her  plan  in 
motion.  The  occasion  was  furnished  by  Raymond's 
[5281 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

next  trip  to  Beaune.  He  went  off  early  one  morning, 
leaving  word  that  he  should  not  be  back  till  night; 
and  on  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  she  stood  at  her 
usual  post  in  the  gallery,  scanning  the  long  perspective 
of  the  poplar  avenue. 

She  had  not  stood  there  long  before  a  black  speck 
at  the  end  of  the  avenue  expanded  into  a  motor  that 
was  presently  throbbing  at  the  entrance.  Undine,  at 
its  approach,  turned  from  the  window,  and  as  she 
moved  down  the  gallery  her  glance  rested  on  the  great 
tapestries,  with  their  ineffable  minglings  of  blue  and 
rose,  as  complacently  as  though  they  had  been  mirrors 
reflecting  her  own  image. 

She  was  still  looking  at  them  when  the  door  opened 
and  a  servant  ushered  in  a  small  swarthy  man  who,  in 
spite  of  his  conspicuously  London-made  clothes,  had 
an  odd  exotic  air,  as  if  he  had  worn  rings  in  his  ears 
or  left  a  bale  of  spices  at  the  door. 

He  bowed  to  Undine,  cast  a  rapid  eye  up  and  down 
the  room,  and  then,  with  his  back  to  the  windows, 
stood  intensely  contemplating  the  wall  that  faced 
them. 

Undine's  heart  was  beating  excitedly.  She  knew  the 
old  Marquise  was  taking  her  afternoon  nap  in  her  room, 
yet  each  sound  in  the  silent  house  seemed  to  be  that 
of  her  heels  on  the  stairs. 

"Ah "  said  the  visitor. 

He  had  begun  to  pace  slowly  down  the  gallery, 
[5291 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

keeping  his  face  to  the  tapestries,  like  an  actor  playing 
to  the  footlights. 

"Ah "  he  said  again. 

To  ease  the  tension  of  her  nerves  Undine  began: 
"They  were  given  by  Louis  the  Fifteenth  to  the  Mar 
quis  de  Chelles  who " 

"Their  history  has  been  published,"  the  visitor 
briefly  interposed;  and  she  coloured  at  her  blunder. 

The  swarthy  stranger,  fitting  a  pair  of  eye-glasses  to 
a  nose  that  was  like  an  instrument  of  precision,  had 
begun  a  closer  and  more  detailed  inspection  of  the 
tapestries.  He  seemed  totally  unmindful  of  her  pres 
ence,  and  his  air  of  lofty  indifference  was  beginning  to 
make  her  wish  she  had  not  sent  for  him.  His  manner 
in  Paris  had  been  so  different! 

Suddenly  he  turned  and  took  off  the  glasses,  which 
sprang  back  into  a  fold  of  his  clothing  like  retracted 
feelers. 

"Yes."  He  stood  and  looked  at  her  without  seeing 
her.  "Very  well.  I  have  brought  down  a  gentleman." 

"A  gentleman ?" 

"The  greatest  American  collector — he  buys  only  the 
best.  He  will  not  be  long  in  Paris,  and  it  was  his  only 
chance  of  coming  down." 

Undine  drew  herself  up.  "I  don't  understand — I 
never  said  the  tapestries  were  for  sale." 

"Precisely.  But  this  gentleman  buys  only  things 
that  are  not  for  sale." 

[530] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

It  sounded  dazzling  and  she  wavered.  "I  don't  know 
— you  were  only  to  put  a  price  on  them " 

"Let  me  see  him  look  at  them  first;  then  I'll  put  a 
price  on  them,"  he  chuckled;  and  without  waiting  for 
her  answer  he  went  to  the  door  and  opened  it.  The 
gesture  revealed  the  fur-coated  back  of  a  gentleman 
who  stood  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  hall  examining 
the  bust  of  a  seventeenth  century  field-marshal. 

The  dealer  addressed  the  back  respectfully.  "Mr. 
Moffatt!" 

Moffatt,  who  appeared  to  be  interested  in  the  bust, 
glanced  over  his  shoulder  without  moving.  "See 
here " 

His  glance  took  in  Undine,  widened  to  astonishment 
and  passed  into  apostrophe.  "Well,  if  this  ain't  the 

darnedest !"  He  came  forward  and  took  her  by 

both  hands.  "  Why,  what  on  earth  are  you  doing  down 
here?" 

She  laughed  and  blushed,  in  a  tremor  at  the  odd 
turn  of  the  adventure.  "I  live  here.  Didn't  you  know?" 

"Not  a  word — never  thought  of  asking  the  party's 
name."  He  turned  jovially  to  the  bowing  dealer.  "Say 
— I  told  you  those  tapestries  'd  have  to  be  out  and 
outers  to  make  up  for  the  trip;  but  now  I  see  I  was 
mistaken." 

Undine  looked  at  him  curiously.  His  physical  ap 
pearance  was  unchanged:  he  was  as  compact  and 
ruddy  as  ever,  with  the  same  astute  eyes  under  the 
[5311 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

same  guileless  brow;  but  his  self-confidence  had  become 
less  aggressive,  and  she  had  never  seen  him  so  gallantly 
at  ease. 

"I  didn't  know  you'd  become  a  great  collector." 

"The  greatest!  Didn't  he  tell  you  so?  I  thought  that 
was  why  I  was  allowed  to  come." 

She  hesitated.  "Of  course,  you  know,  the  tapestries 
are  not  for  sale — 

"That  so?  I  thought  that  was  only  his  dodge  to  get 
me  down.  Well,  I'm  glad  they  ain't:  it'll  give  us  more 
time  to  talk." 

Watch  in  hand,  the  dealer  intervened.  "If,  never 
theless,  you  would  first  take  a  glance.  Our  train 

"It  ain't  mine!"  Moffatt  interrupted;  "at  least  not 
if  there's  a  later  one." 

Undine's  presence  of  mind  had  returned.  "Of  course 
there  is,"  she  said  gaily.  She  led  the  way  back  into  the 
gallery,  half  hoping  the  dealer  would  allege  a  pressing 
reason  for  departure.  She  was  excited  and  amused  at 
Moffatt's  unexpected  appearance,  but  humiliated  that 
he  should  suspect  her  of  being  in  financial  straits. 
She  never  wanted  to  see  Moffatt  except  when  she  was 
happy  and  triumphant. 

The  dealer  had  followed  the  other  two  into  the  gal 
lery,  and  there  was  a  moment's  pause  while  they  all 
stood  silently  before  the  tapestries.  "By  George!" 
Moffatt  finally  brought  out. 

"They're  historical,  you  know:  the  King  gave  them 
[5321 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

to  Raymond's  great-great-grandfather.  The  other  day 
when  I  was  in  Paris,"  Undine  hurried  on,  "I  asked  Mr. 
Fleischhauer  to  come  down  some  time  and  tell  us  what 
they're  worth  .  .  .  and  he  seems  to  have  misunder 
stood  ...  to  have  thought  we  meant  to  sell  them." 
She  addressed  herself  more  pointedly  to  the  dealer. 
"I'm  sorry  you've  had  the  trip  for  nothing." 

Mr.  Fleischhauer  inclined  himself  eloquently.  "It  is 
not  nothing  to  have  seen  such  beauty." 

Moffatt  gave  him  a  humorous  look.  "I'd  hate  to 
see  Mr.  Fleischhauer  miss  his  train " 

"I  shall  not  miss  it:  I  miss  nothing,"  said  Mr. 
Fleischhauer.  He  bowed  to  Undine  and  backed  toward 
the  door. 

"See  here,"  Moffatt  called  to  him  as  he  reached  the 
threshold,  "you  let  the  motor  take  you  to  the  station, 
and  charge  up  this  trip  to  me." 

When  the  door  closed  he  turned  to  Undine  with  a 
laugh.  "Well,  this  beats  the  band.  I  thought  of  course 
you  were  living  up  in  Paris." 

Again  she  felt  a  twinge  of  embarrassment.  "Oh, 
French  people — I  mean  my  husband's  kind — always 
spend  a  part  of  the  year  on  their  estates." 

"But  not  this  part,  do  they?  Why,  everything's 
humming  up  there  now.  I  was  dining  at  the  Nouveau 
Luxe  last  night  with  the  Driscolls  and  Shallums  and 
Mrs.  Rolliver,  and  all  your  old  crowd  were  there 
whooping  things  up." 

[533] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  Driscolls  and  Shallums  and  Mrs.  Rolliver! 
How  carelessly  he  reeled  off  their  names!  One  could 
see  from  his  tone  that  he  was  one  of  them  and  wanted 
her  to  know  it.  And  nothing  could  have  given  her  a 
completer  sense  of  his  achievement — of  the  number  of 
millions  he  must  be  worth.  It  must  have  come  about 
very  recently,  yet  he  was  already  at  ease  in  his  new 
honours — he  had  the  metropolitan  tone.  While  she 
examined  him  with  these  thoughts  in  her  mind  she 
was  aware  of  his  giving  her  as  close  a  scrutiny.  "But  I 
suppose  you've  got  your  own  crowd  now,"  he  con 
tinued;  "you  always  were  a  lap  ahead  of  me."  He  sent 
his  glance  down  the  lordly  length  of  the  room.  "It's 
sorter  funny  to  see  you  in  this  kind  of  place;  but  you 
look  it — you  always  do  look  it!" 

She  laughed.  "So  do  you — I  was  just  thinking  it!" 
Their  eyes  met.  "I  suppose  you  must  be  awfully 
rich." 

He  laughed  too,  holding  her  eyes.  "Oh,  out  of  sight! 
The  Consolidation  set  me  on  my  feet.  I  own  pretty 
near  the  whole  of  Apex.  I  came  down  to  buy  these 
tapestries  for  my  private  car." 

The  familiar  accent  of  hyperbole  exhilarated  her.  "I 
don't  suppose  I  could  stop  you  if  you  really  wanted 
them!" 

"Nobody  can  stop  me  now  if  I  want  anything." 

They  were  looking  at  each  other  with  challenge  and 
complicity  in  their  eyes.  His  voice,  his  look,  all  the 
[534] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

loud  confident  vigorous  things  he  embodied  and  ex 
pressed,  set  her  blood  beating  with  curiosity.  "I 
didn't  know  you  and  Rolliver  were  friends,"  she 
said. 

"Oh  Jim "  his  accent  verged  on  the  protective. 

"Old  Jim's  all  right.  He's  in  Congress  now.  I've  got 
to  have  somebody  up  in  Washington."  He  had  thrust 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  with  his  head  thrown 
back  and  his  lips  shaped  to  the  familiar  noiseless  whis 
tle,  was  looking  slowly  and  discerningly  about  him. 

Presently  his  eyes  reverted  to  her  face.  "So  this  is 
what  I  helped  you  to  get,"  he  said.  "I've  always  meant 
to  run  over  some  day  and  take  a  look.  What  is  it  they 
call  you — a  Marquise?" 

She  paled  a  little,  and  then  flushed  again.  "What 
made  you  do  it?"  she  broke  out  abruptly.  "I've  often 
wondered." 

He  laughed.  "What — lend  you  a  hand?  Why,  my 
business  instinct,  I  suppose.  I  saw  you  were  in  a  tight 
place  that  time  I  ran  across  you  in  Paris — and  I  hadn't 
any  grudge  against  you.  Fact  is,  I've  never  had  the 
time  to  nurse  old  scores,  and  if  you  neglect  'em  they  die 
off  like  gold-fish."  He  was  still  composedly  regarding 
her.  "It's  funny  to  think  of  your  having  settled  down 
to  this  kind  of  life;  I  hope  you've  got  what  you  wanted. 
This  is  a  great  place  you  live  in." 

"Yes;  but  I  see  a  little  too  much  of  it.  We  live  here 
most  of  the  year."  She  had  meant  to  give  him  the  il- 
[535] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

lusion  of  success,  but  some  underlying  community  of 
instinct  drew  the  confession  from  her  lips. 

"That  so?  Why  on  earth  don't  you  cut  it  and  come 
up  to  Paris?" 

"Oh,  Raymond's  absorbed  in  the  estates — and  we 
haven't  got  the  money.  This  place  eats  it  all  up." 

"Well,  that  sounds  aristocratic;  but  ain't  it  rather 
out  of  date?  When  the  swells  are  hard-up  nowadays 
they  generally  chip  off  an  heirloom."  He  wheeled  round 
again  to  the  tapestries.  "There  are  a  good  many  Paris 
seasons  hanging  right  here  on  this  wall." 

"Yes — I  know."  She  tried  to  check  herself,  to  sum 
mon  up  a  glittering  equivocation;  but  his  face,  his 
voice,  the  very  words  he  used,  were  like  so  many 
hammer-strokes  demolishing  the  unrealities  that  im 
prisoned  her.  Here  was  some  one  wiio  spoke  her  lan 
guage,  who  knew  her  meanings,  who  understood  in 
stinctively  all  the  deep-seated  wants  for  which  her 
acquired  vocabulary  had  no  terms;  and  as  she  talked 
she  once  more  seemed  to  herself  intelligent,  eloquent 
and  interesting. 

"Of  course  it's  frightfully  lonely  down  here,"  she 
began;  and  through  the  opening  made  by  the  ad 
mission  the  whole  flood  of  her  grievances  poured  forth. 
She  tried  to  let  him  see  that  she  had  not  sacrificed  her 
self  for  nothing;  she  touched  on  the  superiorities  of  her 
situation,  she  gilded  the  circumstances  of  which  she 
called  herself  the  victim,  and  let  titles,  offices  and  at- 
[5361 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

tributes  shed  their  utmost  lustre  on  her  tale;  but  what 
she  had  to  boast  of  seemed  small  and  tinkling  compared 
with  the  evidences  of  his  power. 

"Well,  it's  a  downright  shame  you  don't  go  round 
more,"  he  kept  saying;  and  she  felt  ashamed  of  her 
tame  acceptance  of  her  fate. 

When  she  had  told  her  story  she  asked  for  his;  and 
for  the  first  time  she  listened  to  it  with  interest.  He 
had  what  he  wanted  at  last.  The  Apex  Consolidation 
scheme,  after  a  long  interval  of  suspense,  had  obtained 
its  charter  and  shot  out  huge  ramifications.  Rolliver 
had  "stood  in"  with  him  at  the  critical  moment,  and 
between  them  they  had  "chucked  out"  old  Harmon 
B.  Driscoll  bag  and  baggage,  and  got  the  whole  town 
in  their  control.  Absorbed  in  his  theme,  and  forgetting 
her  inability  to  follow  him,  Moffatt  launched  out  on 
an  epic  recital  of  plot  and  counterplot,  and  she  hung, 
a  new  Desdemona,  on  his  conflict  with  the  new  an 
thropophagi.  It  was  of  no  consequence  that  the  details 
and  the  technicalities  escaped  her:  she  knew  their 
meaningless  syllables  stood  for  success,  and  what  that 
meant  was  as  clear  as  day  to  her.  Every  Wall  Street 
term  had  its  equivalent  in  the  language  of  Fifth  Avenue, 
and  while  he  talked  of  building  up  railways  she  was 
building  up  palaces,  and  picturing  all  the  multiple  lives 
he  would  lead  in  them.  To  have  things  had  always 
seemed  to  her  the  first  essential  of  existence,  and  as 
she  listened  to  him  the  vision  cf  the  things  he  could 
[537] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

have  unrolled  itself  before  her  like  the  long  triumph  of 
an  Asiatic  conqueror. 

"And  what  are  you  going  to  do  next?"  she  asked, 
almost  breathlessly,  when  he  had  ended. 

"  Oh,  there's  always  a  lot  to  do  next.  Business  never 
goes  to  sleep." 

"Yes;   but  I  mean  besides  business." 

"Why — everything  I  can,  I  guess."  He  leaned  back 
in  his  chair  with  an  air  of  placid  power,  as  if  he  were 
so  sure  of  getting  what  he  wanted  that  there  was  no 
longer  any  use  in  hurrying,  huge  as  his  vistas  had 
become. 

She  continued  to  question  him,  and  he  began  to 
talk  of  his  growing  passion  for  pictures  and  furniture, 
and  of  his  desire  to  form  a  collection  which  should  be  a 
great  representative  assemblage  of  unmatched  speci 
mens.  As  he  spoke  she  saw  his  expression  change,  and 
his  eyes  grow  younger,  almost  boyish,  with  a  concen 
trated  look  in  them  that  reminded  her  of  long-forgotten 
things. 

"I  mean  to  have  the  best,  you  know;  not  just  to  get 
ahead  of  the  other  fellows,  but  because  I  know  it  when 
I  see  it.  I  guess  that's  the  only  good  reason,"  he  con 
cluded;  and  he  added,  looking  at  her  with  a  smile: 
"It  was  what  you  were  always  after,  wasn't  it?" 


[538 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


XLII 

IT  TNDINE  had  gained  her  point,  and  the  entresol 
\^J    of  the  Hotel  de  Chelles  reopened  its  doors  for 
the  season. 

Hubert  and  his  wife,  in  expectation  of  the  birth  of  an 
heir,  had  withdrawn  to  the  sumptuous  chateau  which 
General  Arlington  had  hired  for  them  near  Compiegne, 
and  Undine  was  at  least  spared  the  sight  of  their  bright 
windows  and  animated  stairway.  But  she  had  to  take 
her  share  of  the  felicitations  which  the  whole  far- 
reaching  circle  of  friends  and  relations  distributed  to 
every  member  of  Hubert's  family  on  the  approach  of 
the  happy  event.  Nor  was  this  the  hardest  of  her  trials. 
Raymond  had  done  what  she  asked — he  had  stood 
out  against  his  mother's  protests,  set  aside  considera 
tions  of  prudence,  and  consented  to  go  up  to  Paris  for 
two  months;  but  he  had  done  so  on  the  understanding 
that  during  their  stay  they  should  exercise  the  most 
unremitting  economy.  As  dinner-giving  put  the  heaviest 
strain  on  their  budget,  all  hospitality  was  suspended; 
and  when  Undine  attempted  to  invite  a  few  friends  in 
formally  she  was  warned  that  she  could  not  do  so  with 
out  causing  the  gravest  offense  to  the  many  others 
genealogically  entitled  to  the  same  attention. 

Raymond's  insistence  on  this  rule  was  simply  part 
of  an  elaborate  and  inveterate  system  of  "relations'* 
[5391 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

(the  whole  of  French  social  life  seemed  to  depend  on  the 
exact  interpretation  of  that  word),  and  Undine  felt 
the  uselessness  of  struggling  against  such  mysterious 
inhibitions.  He  reminded  her,  however,  that  their  in 
ability  to  receive  would  give  them  all  the  more  oppor 
tunity  for  going  out,  and  he  showed  himself  more 
socially  disposed  than  in  the  past.  But  his  concession 
did  not  result  as  she  had  hoped.  They  were  asked  out  as 
much  as  ever,  but  they  were  asked  to  big  dinners,  to 
impersonal  crushes,  to  the  kind  of  entertainment  it  is 
a  slight  to  be  omitted  from  but  no  compliment  to  be 
included  in.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  galling  to 
Undine,  and  she  frankly  bewailed  the  fact  to  Madame 
de  Trezac. 

"Of  course  it's  what  was  sure  to  come  of  being 
mewed  up  for  months  and  months  in  the  country. 
We're  out  of  everything,  and  the  people  who  are  having 
a  good  time  are  simply  too  busy  to  remember  us.  We're 
only  asked  to  the  things  that  are  made  up  from  visit 
ing-lists." 

Madame  de  Trezac  listened  sympathetically,  but 
did  not  suppress  a  candid  answer. 

"It's  not  altogether  that,  my  dear;  Raymond's  not 
a  man  his  friends  forget.  It's  rather  more,  if  you'll 
excuse  my  saying  so,  the  fact  of  your  being — you  per 
sonally — in  the  wrong  set." 

"The  wrong  set?  Why,  I'm  in  his  set — the  one 
that  thinks  itself  too  good  for  all  the  others.  That's 
[540] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

what  you've  always  told  me  when  I've  said  it  bored 
me." 

"Well,  that's  what  I  mean—  "  Madame  de  Trezac 
took  the  plunge.  "It's  not  a  question  of  your  being 
bored." 

Undine  coloured;  but  she  could  take  the  hardest 
thrusts  where  her  personal  interest  was  involved.  "You 
mean  that  Tm  the  bore,  then?" 

"Well,  you  don't  work  hard  enough — you  don't 
keep  up.  It's  not  that  they  don't  admire  you — your 
looks,  I  mean;  they  think  you  beautiful;  they're  de 
lighted  to  bring  you  out  at  their  big  dinners,  with  the 
Sevres  and  the  plate.  But  a  woman  has  got  to  be 
something  more  than  good-looking  to  have  a  chance 
to  be  intimate  with  them:  she's  got  to  know  what's 
being  said  about  things.  I  watched  you  the  other  night 
at  the  Duchess's,  and  half  the  time  you  hadn't  an  idea 
what  they  were  talking  about.  I  haven't  always,  either; 
but  then  I  have  to  put  up  with  the  big  dinners." 

Undine  winced  under  the  criticism;  but  she  had 
never  lacked  insight  into  the  cause  of  her  own  failures, 
and  she  had  already  had  premonitions  of  what  Madame 
de  Trezac  so  bluntly  phrased.  When  Raymond  ceased 
to  be  interested  in  her  conversation  she  had  concluded 
it  was  the  way  of  husbands;  but  since  then  it  had  been 
slowly  dawning  on  her  that  she  produced  the  same 
effect  on  others.  Her  entrances  were  always  triumphs; 
but  they  had  no  sequel.  As  soon  as  people  began  to 
[541] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

talk  they  ceased  to  see  her.  Any  sense  of  insufficiency 
exasperated  her,  and  she  had  vague  thoughts  of  cul 
tivating  herself,  and  went  so  far  as  to  spend  a  morning 
in  the  Louvre  and  go  to  one  or  two  lectures  by  a 
fashionable  philosopher.  But  though  she  returned  from 
these  expeditions  charged  with  opinions,  their  expres 
sion  did  not  excite  the  interest  she  had  hoped.  Her 
views,  if  abundant,  were  confused,  and  the  more  she 
said  the  more  nebulous  they  seemed  to  grow.  She  was 
disconcerted,  moreover,  by  finding  that  everybody  ap 
peared  to  know  about  the  things  she  thought  she  had 
discovered,  and  her  comments  clearly  produced  more 
bewilderment  than  interest. 

Remembering  the  attention  she  had  attracted  on  her 
first  appearance  in  Raymond's  world  she  concluded 
that  she  had  "gone  off"  or  grown  dowdy,  and  instead 
of  wasting  more  time  in  museums  and  lecture-halls 
she  prolonged  her  hours  at  the  dress-maker's  and  gave 
up  the  rest  of  the  day  to  the  scientific  cultivation  of 
her  beauty. 

"I  suppose  I've  turned  into  a  perfect  frump  down 
there  in  that  wilderness,"  she  lamented  to  Madame  de 
Trezac,  who  replied  inexorably:  "Oh,  no,  you're  as 
handsome  as  ever;  but  people  here  don't  go  on  looking 
at  each  other  forever  as  they  do  in  London." 

Meanwhile  financial  cares  became  more  pressing. 
A  dunning  letter  from  one  of  her  tradesmen  fell  into 
Raymond's  hands,  and  the  talk  it  led  to  ended  in  his 
[5421 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

making  it  clear  to  her  that  she  must  settle  her  personal 
debts  without  his  aid.  All  the  "scenes"  about  money 
which  had  disturbed  her  past  had  ended  in  some  mys 
terious  solution  of  her  difficulty.  Disagreeable  as  they 
were,  she  had  always,  vulgarly  speaking,  found  they 
paid;  but  now  it  was  she  who  was  expected  to  pay. 
Raymond  took  his  stand  without  ill- temper  or  apology : 
he  simply  argued  from  inveterate  precedent.  But  it 
was  impossible  for  Undine  to  understand  a  social  or 
ganization  which  did  not  regard  the  indulging  of  woman 
as  its  first  purpose,  or  to  believe  that  any  one  taking 
another  view  was  not  moved  by  avarice  or  malice; 
and  the  discussion  ended  in  mutual  acrimony. 

The  morning  afterward,  Raymond  came  into  her 
room  with  a  letter  in  his  hand. 

'Is  this  your  doing?"  he  asked.  His  look  and  voice 
expressed  something  she  had  never  known  before:  the 
disciplined  anger  of  a  man  trained  to  keep  his  emotions 
in  fixed  channels,  but  knowing  how  to  fill  them  to  the 
brim. 

The  letter  was  from  Mr.  Fleischhauer,  who  begged 
to  transmit  to  the  Marquis  de  Chelles  an  offer  for  his 
Boucher  tapestries  from  a  client  prepared  to  pay  the 
large  sum  named  on  condition  that  it  was  accepted 
before  his  approaching  departure  for  America. 

"What  does  it  mean?"  Raymond  continued,  as  she 
did  not  speak. 

"How  should  I  know?  It's  a  lot  of  money,"  she 
[5431 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

stammered,  shaken  out  of  her  self-possession.  She  had 
not  expected  so  prompt  a  sequel  to  the  dealer's  visit, 
and  she  was  vexed  with  him  for  writing  to  Raymond 
without  consulting  her.  But  she  recognized  Moffatt's 
high-handed  way,  and  her  fears  faded  in  the  great  blaze 
of  the  sum  he  offered. 

Her  husband  was  still  looking  at  her.  "It  was  Fleisch- 
hauer  who  brought  a  man  down  to  see  the  tapestries 
one  day  when  I  was  away  at  Beaune?" 

He  had  known,  then — everything  was  known  at 
Saint  Desert! 

She  wavered  a  moment  and  then  gave  him  back  his 
look. 

"Yes — it  was  Fleischhauer;   and  I  sent  for  him." 

"You  sent  for  him?" 

He  spoke  in  a  voice  so  veiled  and  repressed  that  he 
seemed  to  be  consciously  saving  it  for  some  premedi 
tated  outbreak.  Undine  felt  its  menace,  but  the  thought 
of  Moffatt  sent  a  flame  through  her,  and  the  words  he 
would  have  spoken  seemed  to  fly  to  her  lips. 

"Why  shouldn't  I?  Something  had  to  be  done.  We 
can't  go  on  as  we  are.  I've  tried  my  best  to  economize 
— I've  scraped  and  scrimped,  and  gone  without  heaps 
of  things  I've  always  had.  I've  moped  for  months  and 
months  at  Saint  Desert,  and  given  up  sending  Paul  to 
school  because  it  was  too  expensive,  and  asking  my 
friends  to  dine  because  we  couldn't  afford  it.  And  you 
expect  me  to  go  on  living  like  this  for  the  rest  of  my 
[544] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

life,  when  all  you've  got  to  do  is  to  hold  out  your  hand 
and  have  two  million  francs  drop  into  it!" 

Her  husband  stood  looking  at  her  coldly  and  curi 
ously,  as  though  she  were  some  alien  apparition  his 
eyes  had  never  before  beheld. 

"Ah,  that's  your  answer — that's  all  you  feel  when 
you  lay  hands  on  things  that  are  sacred  to  us!"  He 
stopped  a  moment,  and  then  let  his  voice  break  out 
with  the  volume  she  had  felt  it  to  be  gathering.  "And 
you're  all  alike,"  he  exclaimed,  "every  one  of  you. 
You  come  among  us  from  a  country  we  don't  know/ 
and  can't  imagine,  a  country  you  care  for  so  little  that 
before  you've  been  a  day  in  ours  you've  forgotten  the 
very  house  you  were  born  in — if  it  wasn't  torn  down 
before  you  knew  it!  You  come  among  us  speaking  our 
language  and  not  knowing  what  we  mean;  wanting 
the  things  we  want,  and  not  knowing  why  we  want 
them;  aping  our  weaknesses,  exaggerating  our  follies, 
ignoring  or  ridiculing  all  we  care  about — you  come  from 
hotels  as  big  as  towns,  and  from  towns  as  flimsy  as 
paper,  where  the  streets  haven't  had  time  to  be  named, 
and  the  buildings  are  demolished  before  they're  dry, 
and  the  people  are  as  proud  of  changing  as  we  are  of 
holding  to  what  we  have — and  we're  fools  enough  to 
imagine  that  because  you  copy  our  ways  and  pick  up 
our  slang  you  understand  anything  about  the  things 
that  make  life  decent  and  honourable  for  us!" 

He  stopped  again,  his  white  face  and  drawn  nostrils 
[545] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

giving  him  so  much  the  look  of  an  extremely  distin 
guished  actor  in  a  fine  part  that,  in  spite  of  the  vehe 
mence  of  his  emotion,  his  silence  might  have  been  the 
deliberate  pause  for  a  replique.  Undine  kept  him  wait 
ing  long  enough  to  give  the  effect  of  having  lost  her 
cue — then  she  brought  out,  with  a  little  soft  stare  of 
incredulity:  "Do  you  mean  to  say  you're  going  to  re 
fuse  such  an  offer?" 

"Ah !"  He  turned  back  from  the  door,  and  pick 
ing  up  the  letter  that  lay  on  the  table  between  them, 
tore  it  in  pieces  and  tossed  the  pieces  on  the  floor. 
"That's  how  I  refuse  it!" 

The  violence  of  his  tone  and  gesture  made  her  feel 
as  though  the  fluttering  strips  were  so  many  lashes  laid 
across  her  face,  and  a  rage  that  was  half  fear  possessed 
her. 

"How  dare  you  speak  to  me  like  that?  Nobody's 
ever  dared  to  before.  Is  talking  to  a  woman  in  that  way 
one  of  the  things  you  call  decent  and  honourable? 
Now  that  I  know  what  you  feel  about  me  I  don't 
want  to  stay  in  your  house  another  day.  And  I  don't 
mean  to — I  mean  to  walk  out  of  it  this  very  hour!" 

For  a  moment  they  stood  face  to  face,  the  depths  of 
their  mutual  incomprehension  at  last  bared  to  each 
other's  angry  eyes;  then  Raymond,  his  glance  travelling 
past  her,  pointed  to  the  fragments  of  paper  on  the  floor. 

"If  you're  capable  of  that  you're  capable  of  any 
thing!"  he  said  as  he  went  out  of  the  room. 
[5461 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 


XLIII 

SHE  watched  him  go  in  a  kind  of  stupour,  knowing 
that  when  they  next  met  he  would  be  as  courteous 
and  self-possessed  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  but  that 
everything  would  nevertheless  go  on  in  the  same  way 
— in  his  way — and  that  there  was  no  more  hope  of 
shaking  his  resolve  or  altering  his  point  of  view  than 
there  would  have  been  of  transporting  the  deep-rooted 
masonry  of  Saint  Desert  by  means  of  the  wheeled  sup 
ports  on  which  Apex  architecture  performed  its  easy 
transits. 

One  of  her  childish  rages  possessed  her,  sweeping 
away  every  feeling  save  the  primitive  impulse  to  hurt 
and  destroy;  but  search  as  she  would  she  could  not 
find  a  crack  in  the  strong  armour  of  her  husband's 
habits  and  prejudices.  For  a  long  time  she  continued 
to  sit  where  he  had  left  her,  staring  at  the  portraits 
on  the  walls  as  though  they  had  joined  hands  to  im 
prison  her.  Hitherto  she  had  almost  always  felt  her 
self  a  match  for  circumstances,  but  now  the  very  dead 
were  leagued  to  defeat  her:  people  she  had  never  seen 
and  whose  names  she  couldn't  even  remember  seemed 
to  be  plotting  and  contriving  against  her  under  the 
escutcheoned  grave-stones  of  Saint  Desert. 

Her  eyes  turned  to  the  old  warm-toned  furniture 
beneath  the  pictures,  and  to  her  own  idle  image  in  the 
[5471 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

mirror  above  the  mantelpiece.  Even  in  that  one  small 
room  there  were  enough  things  of  price  to  buy  a  re 
lease  from  her  most  pressing  cares;  and  the  great 
house,  in  which  the  room  was  a  mere  cell,  and  the  other 
greater  house  in  Burgundy,  held  treasures  to  deplete 
even  such  a  purse  as  Moffatt's.  She  liked  to  see  such 
things  about  her — without  any  real  sense  of  their  mean 
ing  she  felt  them  to  be  the  appropriate  setting  of  a 
pretty  woman,  to  embody  something  of  the  rareness 
and  distinction  she  had  always  considered  she  possessed; 
and  she  reflected  that  if  she  had  still  been  Moffatt's 
wife  he  would  have  given  her  just  such  a  setting,  and 
the  power  to  live  in  it  as  became  her. 

The  thought  sent  her  memory  flying  back  to  things 
she  had  turned  it  from  for  years.  For  the  first  time  since 
their  far-off  weeks  together  she  let  herself  relive  the 
brief  adventure.  She  had  been  drawn  to  Elmer  Moffatt 
from  the  first — from  the  day  when  Ben  Frusk,  Indiana's 
brother,  had  brought  him  to  a  church  picnic  at  Mulvey's 
Grove,  and  he  had  taken  instant  possession  of  Undine, 
sitting  in  the  big  "stage"  beside  her  on  the  "ride"  to 
the  grove,  supplanting  Millard  Binch  (to  whom  she 
was  still,  though  intermittently  and  incompletely,  en 
gaged),  swinging  her  between  the  trees,  rowing  her  on 
the  lake,  catching  and  kissing  her  in  "forfeits,"  award 
ing  her  the  first  prize  in  the  Beauty  Show  he  hilariously 
organized  and  gallantly  carried  out,  and  finally  (no 
one  knew  how)  contriving  to  borrow  a  buggy  and  a  fast 
[548] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

colt  from  old  Mulvey,  and  driving  off  with  her  at  a 
two-forty  gait  while  Millard  and  the  others  took  their 
dust  in  the  crawling  stage. 

No  one  in  Apex  knew  where  young  Moffatt  had  come 
from,  and  he  offered  no  information  on  the  subject. 
He  simply  appeared  one  day  behind  the  counter  in 
Luckaback's  Dollar  Shoe-store,  drifted  thence  to  the 
office  of  Semple  and  Binch,  the  coal-merchants,  reap 
peared  as  the  stenographer  of  the  Police  Court,  and 
finally  edged  his  way  into  the  power-house  of  the  Apex 
Water- Works.  He  boarded  with  old  Mrs.  Flynn,  down 
in  North  Fifth  Street,  on  the  edge  of  the  red-light  slum, 
he  never  went  to  church  or  attended  lectures,  or  showed 
any  desire  to  improve  or  refine  himself;  but  he  man 
aged  to  get  himself  invited  to  all  the  picnics  and  lodge 
sociables,  and  at  a  supper  of  the  Phi  Upsilon  Society, 
to  which  he  had  contrived  to  affiliate  himself,  he  made 
the  best  speech  that  had  been  heard  there  since  young 
Jim  Rolliver's  first  flights.  The  brothers  of  Undine's 
friends  all  pronounced  him  "great,"  though  he  had  fits 
of  uncouthness  that  made  the  young  women  slower  in 
admitting  him  to  favour.  But  at  the  Mulvey's  Grove 
picnic  he  suddenly  seemed  to  dominate  them  all,  and 
Undine,  as  she  drove  away  with  him,  tasted  the  public 
triumph  which  was  necessary  to  her  personal  enjoy 
ment. 

After  that  he  became  a  leading  figure  in  the  youth 
ful  world  of  Apex,  and  no  one  was  surprised  when  the 
[5491 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Sons  of  Jonadab,  (the  local  Temperance  Society)  in 
vited  him  to  deliver  their  Fourth  of  July  oration. 
The  ceremony  took  place,  as  usual,  in  the  Baptist 
church,  and  Undine,  all  in  white,  with  a  red  rose  in  her 
breast,  sat  just  beneath  the  platform,  with  Indiana 
jealously  glaring  at  her  from  a  less  privileged  seat, 
and  poor  Millard's  long  neck  craning  over  the  row  of 
prominent  citizens  behind  the  orator. 

Elmer  Moffatt  had  been  magnificent,  rolling  out  his 
alternating  effects  of  humour  and  pathos,  stirring  his 
audience  by  moving  references  to  the  Blue  and  the 
Gray,  convulsing  them  by  a  new  version  of  Washing 
ton  and  the  Cherry  Tree  (in  which  the  infant  patriot 
was  depicted  as  having  cut  down  the  tree  to  check  the 
deleterious  spread  of  cherry  bounce),  dazzling  them 
by  his  erudite  allusions  and  apt  quotations  (he  con 
fessed  to  Undine  that  he  had  sat  up  half  the  night  over 
Bartlett),  and  winding  up  with  a  peroration  that  drew 
tears  from  the  Grand  Army  pensioners  in  the  front  row 
and  caused  the  minister's  wife  to  say  that  many  a  ser 
mon  from  that  platform  had  been  less  uplifting. 

An  ice-cream  supper  always  followed  the  "exer 
cises,"  and  as  repairs  were  being  made  in  the  church 
basement,  which  was  the  usual  scene  of  the  festivity, 
the  minister  had  offered  the  use  of  his  house.  The 
long  table  ran  through  the  doorway  between  parlour 
and  study,  and  another  was  set  in  the  passage  outside, 
with  one  end  under  the  stairs.  The  stair-rail  was 
[550] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

wreathed  in  fire-weed  and  early  golden-rod,  and  Tem 
perance  texts  in  smilax  decked  the  walls.  When  the 
first  course  had  been  despatched  the  young  ladies,  gal 
lantly  seconded  by  the  younger  of  the  "Sons,"  helped 
to  ladle  out  and  carry  in  the  ice-cream,  which  stood 
in  great  pails  on  the  larder  floor,  and  to  replenish  the 
jugs  of  lemonade  and  coffee.  Elmer  Moffatt  was  inde 
fatigable  in  performing  these  services,  and  when  the 
minister's  wife  pressed  him  to  sit  down  and  take  a 
mouthful  himself  he  modestly  declined  the  place  re 
served  for  him  among  the  dignitaries  of  the  evening, 
and  withdrew  with  a  few  chosen  spirits  to  the  dim 
table-end  beneath  the  stairs.  Explosions  of  hilarity 
came  from  this  corner  with  increasing  frequency,  and 
now  and  then  tumultuous  rappings  and  howls  of  "Song! 
Song!"  followed  by  adjurations  to  "Cough  it  up" 
and  "Let  her  go,"  drowned  the  conversational  efforts 
at  the  other  table. 

At  length  the  noise  subsided,  and  the  group  was 
ceasing  to  attract  attention  when,  toward  the  end  of 
the  evening,  the  upper  table,  drooping  under  the  lengthy 
elucubrations  of  the  minister  and  the  President  of  the 
Temperance  Society,  called  on  the  orator  of  the  day 
for  a  few  remarks.  There  was  an  interval  of  scuffling 
and  laughter  beneath  the  stairs,  and  then  the  minister's 
lifted  hand  enjoined  silence  and  Elmer  Moffatt  got  to 
his  feet. 

"Step  out  where  the  ladies  can  hear  you  better, 
[551] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Mr.  Moffatt!"  the  minister  called.  Moffatt  did  so, 
steadying  himself  against  the  table  and  twisting  his 
head  about  as  if  his  collar  had  grown  too  tight.  But  if 
his  bearing  was  vacillating  his  smile  was  unabashed, 
and  there  was  no  lack  of  confidence  in  the  glance  he 
threw  at  Undine  Spragg  as  he  began:  "Ladies  and 
Gentlemen,  if  there's  one  thing  I  like  better  than  an 
other  about  getting  drunk — and  I  like  most  everything 
about  it  except  the  next  morning — it's  the  opportunity 
you've  given  me  of  doing  it  right  here,  in  the  presence 
of  this  Society,  which,  as  I  gather  from  its  literature, 
knows  more  about  the  subject  than  anybody  else. 
Ladies  and  Gentlemen" — he  straightened  himself,  and 
the  table-cloth  slid  toward  him — "ever  since  you  hon 
oured  me  with  an  invitation  to  address  you  from 
the  temperance  platform  I've  been  assiduously  study 
ing  that  literature;  and  I've  gathered  from  your  own 
evidence — what  I'd  strongly  suspected  before — that  all 
your  converted  drunkards  had  a  hell  of  a  good  time 
before  you  got  at  'em,  and  that .  .  .  and  that  a  good 
many  of  'em  have  gone  on  having  it  since.  .  . " 

At  this  point  he  broke  off,  swept  the  audience  with 
his  confident  smile,  and  then,  collapsing,  tried  to  sit 
down  on  a  chair  that  didn't  happen  to  be  there,  and 
disappeared  among  his  agitated  supporters. 

There  was  a  night-mare  moment  during  which  Un 
dine,  through  the  doorway,  saw  Ben  Frusk  and  the 
others  close  about  the  fallen  orator  to  the  crash  of 
[552] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

crockery  and  tumbling  chairs;  then  some  one  jumped 
up  and  shut  the  parlour  door,  and  a  long-necked  Sun 
day  school  teacher,  who  had  been  nervously  waiting 
his  chance,  and  had  almost  given  it  up,  rose  from  his 
feet  and  recited  High  Tide  at  Gettysburg  amid  hyster 
ical  applause. 

The  scandal  was  considerable,  but  Moffatt,  though 
he  vanished  from  the  social  horizon,  managed  to  keep 
his  place  in  the  power-house  till  he  went  off  for  a  week 
and  turned  up  again  without  being  able  to  give  a  satis 
factory  reason  for  his  absence.  After  that  he  drifted 
from  one  job  to  another,  now  extolled  for  his  "smart 
ness  "  and  business  capacity,  now  dismissed  in  disgrace 
as  an  irresponsible  loafer.  His  head  was  always  full  of 
immense  nebulous  schemes  for  the  enlargement  and  de 
velopment  of  any  business  he  happened  to  be  employed 
in.  Sometimes  his  suggestions  interested  his  employers, 
but  proved  unpractical  and  inapplicable;  sometimes 
he  wore  out  their  patience  or  was  thought  to  be  a  dan 
gerous  dreamer.  Whenever  he  found  there  was  no  hope 
of  his  ideas  being  adopted  he  lost  interest  in  his  work, 
came  late  and  left  early,  or  disappeared  for  two  or 
three  days  at  a  time  without  troubling  himself  to  ac 
count  for  his  absences.  At  last  even  those  who  had 
been  cynical  enough  to  smile  over  his  disgrace  at  the 
temperance  supper  began  to  speak  of  him  as  a  hope 
less  failure,  and  he  lost  the  support  of  the  feminine 
community  when  one  Sunday  morning,  just  as  the 
[553] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Baptist  and  Methodist  churches  were  releasing  their 
congregations,  he  walked  up  Eubaw  Avenue  with  a 
young  woman  less  known  to  those  sacred  edifices  than 
to  the  saloons  of  North  Fifth  Street. 

Undine's  estimate  of  people  had  always  been  based 
on  their  apparent  power  of  getting  what  they  wanted 
— provided  it  came  under  the  category  of  things  she 
understood  wanting.  Success  was  beauty  and  romance 
to  her;  yet  it  was  at  the  moment  when  Elmer  Moffatt's 
failure  was  most  complete  and  flagrant  that  she  sud 
denly  felt  the  extent  of  his  power.  After  the  Eubaw 
Avenue  scandal  he  had  been  asked  not  to  return  to 
the  surveyor's  office  to  which  Ben  Frusk  had  man 
aged  to  get  him  admitted;  and  on  the  day  of  his  dis 
missal  he  met  Undine  in  Main  Street,  at  the  shopping 
hour,  and,  sauntering  up  cheerfully,  invited  her  to 
take  a  walk  with  him.  She  was  about  to  refuse  when  she 
saw  Millard  Binch's  mother  looking  at  her  disapprov 
ingly  from  the  opposite  street-corner. 

"Oh,  well,  I  will "  she  said;  and  they  walked 

the  length  of  Main  Street  and  out  to  the  immature 
park  in  which  it  ended.  She  was  in  a  mood  of  aim 
less  discontent  and  unrest,  tired  of  her  engagement 
to  Millard  Binch,  disappointed  with  Moffatt,  half- 
ashamed  of  being  seen  with  him,  and  yet  not  sorry  to 
have  it  known  that  she  was  independent  enough  to 
choose  her  companions  without  regard  to  the  Apex 
verdict. 

[5541 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Well,  I  suppose  you  know  I'm  down  and  out,"  he 
began;  and  she  responded  virtuously:  "You  must 
have  wanted  to  be,  or  you  wouldn't  have  behaved  the 
way  you  did  last  Sunday." 

"Oh,  shucks!"  he  sneered.  "What  do  I  care,  in  a 
one-horse  place  like  this?  If  it  hadn't  been  for  you  I'd 
have  got  a  move  on  long  ago." 

She  did  not  remember  afterward  what  else  he  said: 
she  recalled  only  the  expression  of  a  great  sweeping 
scorn  of  Apex,  into  which  her  own  disdain  of  it  was  ab 
sorbed  like  a  drop  in  the  sea,  and  the  affirmation  of  a 
soaring  self-confidence  that  seemed  to  lift  her  on  wings. 
All  her  own  attempts  to  get  what  she  wanted  had  come 
to  nothing;  but  she  had  always  attributed  her  lack  of 
success  to  the  fact  that  she  had  had  no  one  to  second 
her.  It  was  strange  that  Elmer  Moffatt,  a  shiftless  out 
cast  from  even  the  small  world  she  despised,  should 
give  her,  in  the  very  moment  of  his  downfall,  the  sense 
of  being  able  to  succeed  where  she  had  failed.  It  was 
a  feeling  she  never  had  in  his  absence,  but  that  his 
nearness  always  instantly  revived;  and  he  seemed 
nearer  to  her  now  than  he  had  ever  been.  They  wandered 
on  to  the  edge  of  the  vague  park,  and  sat  down  on  a 
bench  behind  the  empty  band-stand. 

"I  went  with  that  girl  on  purpose,  and  you  know 
it,"  he  broke  out  abruptly.  "It  makes  me  too  damned 
sick  to  see  Millard  Binch  going  round  looking  as  if 
he'd  patented  you." 

[5551 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

'You've   got   no  right "  she  interrupted;  and 

suddenly  she  was  in  his  arms,  and  feeling  that  no  one 
had  ever  kissed  her  before.  .  . 

The  week  that  followed  was  a  big  bright  blur — the 
wildest  vividest  moment  of  her  life.  And  it  was  only 
eight  days  later  that  they  were  in  the  train  together, 
Apex  and  all  her  plans  and  promises  behind  them, 
and  a  bigger  and  brighter  blur  ahead,  into  which  they 
were  plunging  as  the  "Limited"  plunged  into  the  sun 
set.  .  . 

Undine  stood  up,  looking  about  her  with  vague 
eyes,  as  if  she  had  come  back  from  a  long  distance. 
Elmer  Moffatt  was  still  in  Paris — he  was  in  reach, 
within  telephone-call.  She  stood  hesitating  a  moment; 
then  she  went  into  her  dressing-room,  and  turning  over 
the  pages  of  the  telephone  book,  looked  out  the  number 
of  the  Nouveau  Luxe.  .  . 

XLIV 

UNDINE  had  been  right  in  supposing  that  her 
husband  would  expect  their  life  to  go  on  as 
before.  There  was  no  appreciable  change  in  the  situa 
tion  save  that  he  was  more  often  absent — finding  abun 
dant  reasons,  agricultural  and  political,  for  frequent 
trips  to  Saint  Desert — and  that,  when  in  Paris,  he  no 
longer  showed  any  curiosity  concerning  her  occupations 
[556] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

and  engagements.  They  lived  as  much  apart  is  -if  their 
cramped  domicile  had  been  a  palace;  and  when  Un 
dine — as  she  now  frequently  did — joined  the  Shallums 
or  Rollivers  for  a  dinner  at  the  Nouveau  Luxe,  or  a 
party  at  a  petit  theatre,  she  was  not  put  to  the  trouble  of 
prevaricating. 

Her  first  impulse,  after  her  scene  with  Raymond,  had 
been  to  ring  up  Indiana  Rolliver  and  invite  herself  to 
dine.  It  chanced  that  Indiana  (who  was  now  in  full 
social  progress,  and  had  "run  over"  for  a  few  weeks 
to  get  her  dresses  for  Newport)  had  organized  for  the 
same  evening  a  showy  cosmopolitan  banquet  in  which 
she  was  enchanted  to  include  the  Marquise  de  Chelles; 
and  Undine,  as  she  had  hoped,  found  Elmer  Moffatt 
of  the  party.  When  she  drove  up  to  the  Nouveau  Luxe 
she  had  not  fixed  on  any  plan  of  action;  but  once  she 
had  crossed  its  magic  threshold  her  energies  revived 
like  plants  in  water.  At  last  she  was  in  her  native  air 
again,  among  associations  she  shared  and  conventions 
she  understood;  and  all  her  self-confidence  returned  as 
the  familar  accents  uttered  the  accustomed  things. 

Save  for  an  occasional  perfunctory  call,  she  had 
hitherto  made  no  effort  to  see  her  compatriots,  and  she 
noticed  that  Mrs.  Jim  Driscoll  and  Bertha  Shallum  re 
ceived  her  with  a  touch  of  constraint;  but  it  vanished 
when  they  remarked  the  cordiality  of  Moffatt's  greet 
ing.  Her  seat  was  at  his  side,  and  her  old  sense  of  tri 
umph  returned  as  she  perceived  the  importance  his 
[5571 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

notice  conferred,  not  only  in  the  eyes  of  her  own  party 
but  of  the  other  diners.  Moffatt  was  evidently  a  notable 
figure  in  all  the  worlds  represented  about  the  crowded 
tables,  and  Undine  saw  that  many  people  who  seemed 
personally  unacquainted  with  him  were  recognizing 
and  pointing  him  out.  She  was  conscious  of  receiving  a 
large  share  of  the  attention  he  attracted,  and,  bathed 
again  in  the  bright  air  of  publicity,  she  remembered 
the  evening  when  Raymond  de  Chelles'  first  admiring 
glance  had  given  her  the  same  sense  of  triumph. 

This  inopportune  memory  did  not  trouble  her:  she 
was  almost  grateful  to  Raymond  for  giving  her  the 
touch  of  superiority  her  compatriots  clearly  felt  in  her. 
It  was  not  merely  her  title  and  her  "situation,"  but 
the  experiences  she  had  gained  through  them,  that  gave 
her  this  advantage  over  the  loud  vague  company.  She 
had  learned  things  they  did  not  guess:  shades  of  con 
duct,  turns  of  speech,  tricks  of  attitude — and  easy  and 
free  and  enviable  as  she  thought  them,  she  would  not 
for  the  world  have  been  back  among  them  at  the  cost 
of  knowing  no  more  than  they. 

Moffatt  made  no  allusion  to  his  visit  to  Saint  Desert; 
but  when  the  party  had  re-grouped  itself  about  coffee 
and  liqueurs  on  the  terrace,  he  bent  over  to  ask  con 
fidentially:  "What  about  my  tapestries?" 

She  replied  in  the  same  tone:  "You  oughtn't  to 
have  let  Fleischhauer  write  that  letter.  My  husband's 
furious." 

[5581 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

He  seemed  honestly  surprised.  "Why?  Didn't  I 
offer  him  enough?" 

"He's  furious  that  any  one  should  offer  anything. 
I  thought  when  he  found  out  what  they  were  worth  he 
might  be  tempted;  but  he'd  rather  see  me  starve  than 
part  with  one  of  his  grand-father's  snuff-boxes." 

"Well,  he  knows  now  what  the  tapestries  are  worth. 
I  offered  more  than  Fleischhauer  advised." 

"Yes;   but  you  were  in  too  much  of  a  hurry." 

"I've  got  to  be;   I'm  going  back  next  week." 

She  felt  her  eyes  cloud  with  disappointment.  "Oh, 
why  do  you?  I  hoped  you  might  stay  on." 

They  looked  at  each  other  uncertainly  a  moment; 
then  he  dropped  his  voice  to  say:  "Even  if  I  did,  I 
probably  shouldn't  see  anything  of  you." 

"Why  not?  Why  won't  you  come  and  see  me?  I've 
always  wanted  to  be  friends." 

He  came  the  next  day  and  found  in  her  drawing-room 
two  ladies  whom  she  introduced  as  her  sisters-in-law. 
The  ladies  lingered  on  for  a  long  time,  sipping  their  tea 
stiffly  and  exchanging  low-voiced  remarks  while  Un 
dine  talked  with  Moffatt;  and  when  they  left,  with 
small  sidelong  bows  in  his  direction,  Undine  exclaimed : 
"Now  you  see  how  they  all  watch  me!" 

She  began  to  go  into  the  details  of  her  married  life, 
drawing  on  the  experiences  of  the  first  months  for  in 
stances  that  scarcely  applied  to  her  present  liberated 
state.  She  could  thus,  without  great  exaggeration,  pict- 
[5591 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

lire  herself  as  entrapped  into  a  bondage  hardly  con 
ceivable  to  Moffatt,  and  she  saw  him  redden  with  ex 
citement  as  he  listened.  "I  call  it  darned  low — darned 
low "  he  broke  in  at  intervals. 

"Of  course  I  go  round  more  now,"  she  concluded. 
"I  mean  to  see  my  friends — I  don't  care  what  he  says." 

"What  can  he  say?" 

"Oh,  he  despises  Americans — they  all  do." 

"Well,  I  guess  we  can  still  sit  up  and  take  nourish 
ment." 

They  laughed  and  slipped  back  to  talking  of  earlier 
things.  She  urged  him  to  put  off  his  sailing — there  were 
so  many  things  they  might  do  together:  sight-seeing 
and  excursions — and  she  could  perhaps  show  him  some 
of  the  private  collections  he  hadn't  seen,  the  ones  it 
was  hard  to  get  admitted  to.  This  instantly  roused 
his  attention,  and  after  naming  one  or  two  collections 
he  had  already  seen  she  hit  on  one  he  had  found  inac 
cessible  and  was  particularly  anxious  to  visit.  "There's 
an  Ingres  there  that's  one  of  the  things  I  came  over  to 
have  a  look  at;  but  I  was  told  there  was  no  use  trying." 

"Oh,  I  can  easily  manage  it:  the  Duke's  Raymond's 
uncle."  It  gave  her  a  peculiar  satisfaction  to  say  it: 
she  felt  as  though  she  were  taking  a  surreptitious  re 
venge  on  her  husband.  "But  he's  down  in  the  country 
this  week,"  she  continued,  "and  no  one — not  even  the 
family — is  allowed  to  see  the  pictures  when  he's  away. 
Of  course  his  Ingres  are  the  finest  in  France." 
[5601 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

She  ran  it  off  glibly,  though  a  year  ago  she  had  never 
heard  of  the  painter,  and  did  not,  even  now,  remember 
whether  he  was  an  Old  Master  or  one  of  the  very  new 
ones  whose  names  one  hadn't  had  time  to  learn. 

Moffatt  put  off  sailing,  saw  the  Duke's  Ingres  under 
her  guidance,  and  accompanied  her  to  various  other 
private  galleries  inaccessible  to  strangers.  She  had 
lived  in  almost  total  ignorance  of  such  opportunities, 
but  now  that  she  could  use  them  to  advantage  she 
showed  a  surprising  quickness  in  picking  up  "tips," 
ferreting  out  rare  things  and  getting  a  sight  of  hidden 
treasures.  She  even  acquired  as  much  of  the  jargon 
as  a  pretty  woman  needs  to  produce  the  impression  of 
being  well-informed;  and  Moffatt's  sailing  was  more 
than  once  postponed. 

They  saw  each  other  almost  daily,  for  she  continued 
to  come  and  go  as  she  pleased,  and  Raymond  showed 
neither  surprise  nor  disapproval.  When  they  were  asked 
to  family  dinners  she  usually  excused  herself  at  the  last 
moment  on  the  plea  of  a  headache  and,  calling  up  In 
diana  or  Bertha  Shallum,  improvised  a  little  party  at 
the  Nouveau  Luxe;  and  on  other  occasions  she  ac 
cepted  such  invitations  as  she  chose,  without  mention 
ing  to  her  husband  where  she  was  going. 

In  this  world  of  lavish  pleasures  she  lost  what  little 

prudence  the  discipline  of  Saint  Desert  had  inculcated. 

She  could  never  be  with  people  who  had  all  the  things 

she  envied  without  being  hypnotized  into  the  belief 

[5611 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

that  she  had  only  to  put  her  hand  out  to  obtain  them, 
and  all  the  unassuaged  rancours  and  hungers  of  her 
early  days  in  West  End  Avenue  came  back  with  in 
creased  acuity.  She  knew  her  wants  so  much  better  now, 
and  was  so  much  more  worthy  of  the  things  she  wanted ! 
She  had  given  up  hoping  that  her  father  might  make 
another  hit  in  Wall  Street.  Mrs.  Spragg's  letters  gave 
the  impression  that  the  days  of  big  strokes  were  over 
for  her  husband,  that  he  had  gone  down  in  the  conflict 
with  forces  beyond  his  measure.  If  he  had  remained 
in  Apex  the  tide  of  its  new  prosperity  might  have  carried 
him  to  wealth;  but  New  York's  huge  waves  of  success 
had  submerged  instead  of  floating  him,  and  Rolliver's 
enmity  was  a  hand  perpetually  stretched  out  to  strike 
him  lower.  At  most,  Mr.  Spragg's  tenacity  would  keep 
him  at  the  level  he  now  held,  and  though  he  and  his 
wife  had  still  further  simplified  their  way  of  living 
Undine  understood  that  their  self-denial  would  not 
increase  her  opportunities.  She  felt  no  compunction  in 
continuing  to  accept  an  undiminished  allowance:  it 
was  the  hereditary  habit  of  the  parent  animal  to  de 
spoil  himself  for  his  progeny.  But  this  conviction  did 
not  seem  incompatible  with  a  sentimental  pity  for  her 
parents.  Aside  from  all  interested  motives,  she  wished 
for  their  own  sakes  that  they  were  better  off.  Their 
personal  requirements  were  pathetically  limited,  but 
renewed  prosperity  would  at  least  have  procured  them 
the  happiness  of  giving  her  what  she  wanted. 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

Moffatt  lingered  on;  but  he  began  to  speak  more 
definitely  of  sailing,  and  Undine  foresaw  the  day  when, 
strong  as  her  attraction  was,  stronger  influences  would 
snap  it  like  a  thread.  She  knew  she  interested  and  amused 
him,  and  that  it  flattered  his  vanity  to  be  seen  with 
her,  and  to  hear  that  rumour  coupled  their  names; 
but  he  gave  her,  more  than  any  one  she  had  ever 
known,  the  sense  of  being  detached  from  his  life,  in 
control  of  it,  and  able,  without  weakness  or  uncertainty, 
to  choose  which  of  its  calls  he  should  obey.  If  the  call 
were  that  of  business — of  any  of  the  great  perilous 
affairs  he  handled  like  a  snake-charmer  spinning  the 
deadly  reptiles  about  his  head — she  knew  she  would 
drop  from  his  life  like  a  loosened  leaf. 

These  anxieties  sharpened  the  intensity  of  her  en 
joyment,  and  made  the  contrast  keener  between  her 
crowded  sparkling  hours  and  the  vacant  months  at 
Saint  Desert.  Little  as  she  understood  of  the  qualities 
that  made  Moffatt  what  he  was,  the  results  were  of  the 
kind  most  palpable  to  her.  He  used  life  exactly  as  she 
would  have  used  it  in  his  place.  Some  of  his  enjoyments 
were  beyond  her  range,  but  even  these  appealed  to  her 
because  of  the  money  that  was  required  to  gratify 
them.  When  she  took  him  to  see  some  inaccessible 
picture,  or  went  with  him  to  inspect  the  treasures  of  a 
famous  dealer,  she  saw  that  the  things  he  looked  at 
moved  him  in  a  way  she  could  not  understand,  and  that 
the  actual  touching  of  rare  textures — bronze  or  marble, 
[5631 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

or  velvets  flushed  with  the  bloom  of  age — gave  him 
sensations  like  those  her  own  beauty  had  once  roused 
in  him.  But  the  next  moment  he  was  laughing  over 
some  commonplace  joke,  or  absorbed  in  a  long  cipher 
cable  handed  to  him  as  they  re-entered  the  Nouveau 
Luxe  for  tea,  and  his  aesthetic  emotions  had  been  thrust 
back  into  their  own  compartment  of  the  great  steel 
strong-box  of  his  mind. 

Her  new  life  went  on  without  comment  or  inter 
ference  from  her  husband,  and  she  saw  that  he  had 
accepted  their  altered  relation,  and  intended  merely  to 
keep  up  an  external  semblance  of  harmony.  To  that 
semblance  she  knew  he  attached  intense  importance: 
it  was  an  article  of  his  complicated  social  creed  that  a 
man  of  his  class  should  appear  to  live  on  good  terms 
with  his  wife.  For  different  reasons  it  was  scarcely  less 
important  to  Undine :  she  had  no  wish  to  affront  again 
the  social  reprobation  that  had  so  nearly  wrecked  her. 
But  she  could  not  keep  up  the  life  she  was  leading  with 
out  more  money,  a  great  deal  more  money;  and  the 
thought  of  contracting  her  expenditure  was  no  longer 
tolerable. 

One  afternoon,  several  weeks  later,  she  came  in  to 
find  a  tradesman's  representative  waiting  with  a  bill. 
There  was  a  noisy  scene  in  the  anteroom  before  the 
man  threateningly  withdrew — a  scene  witnessed  by  the 
servants,  and  overheard  by  her  mother-in-law,  whom 
she  found  seated  in  the  drawing-room  when  she  entered. 
[564] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

The  old  Marquise's  visits  to  her  daughter-in-law 
were  made  at  long  intervals  but  with  ritual  regularity; 
she  called  every  other  Friday  at  five,  and  Undine  had 
forgotten  that  she  was  due  that  day.  This  did  not  make 
for  greater  cordiality  between  them,  and  the  altercation 
in  the  anteroom  had  been  too  loud  for  concealment. 
The  Marquise  was  on  her  feet  when  her  daughter-in- 
law  came  in,  and  instantly  said  with  lowered  eyes :  "It 
would  perhaps  be  best  for  me  to  go." 

"Oh,  I  don't  care.  You're  welcome  to  tell  Raymond 
you've  heard  me  insulted  because  I'm  too  poor  to  pay 
my  bills — he  knows  it  well  enough  already! "  The  words 
broke  from  Undine  unguardedly,  but  once  spoken  they 
nourished  her  defiance. 

"I'm  sure  my  son  has  frequently  recommended 
greater  prudence "  the  Marquise  murmured. 

"Yes!  It's  a  pity  he  didn't  recommend  it  to  your 
other  son  instead!  All  the  money  I  was  entitled  to  has 
gone  to  pay  Hubert's  debts." 

"Raymond  has  told  me  that  there  are  certain  things 
you  fail  to  understand — I  have  no  wish  whatever  to 
discuss  them."  The  Marquise  had  gone  toward  the 
door;  with  her  hand  on  it  she  paused  to  add:  "I  shall 
say  nothing  whatever  of  what  has  happened." 

Her  icy  magnanimity  added  the  last  touch  to  Un 
dine's  wrath.  They  knew  her  extremity,  one  and  all, 
and  it  did  not  move  them.  At  most,  they  would  join 
in  concealing  it  like  a  blot  on  their  honour.  And  the 
[565] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

menace  grew  and  mounted,  and  not  a  hand  was 
stretched  to  help  her.  .  . 

Hardly  a  half-hour  earlier  Moffatt,  with  whom  she 
had  been  visiting  a  "private  view,"  had  sent  her  home 
in  his  motor  with  the  excuse  that  he  must  hurry  back 
to  the  Nouveau  Luxe  to  meet  his  stenographer  and 
sign  a  batch  of  letters  for  the  New  York  mail.  It  was 
therefore  probable  that  he  was  still  at  home — that  she 
should  find  him  if  she  hastened  there  at  once.  An  over 
whelming  desire  to  cry  out  her  wrath  and  wretchedness 
brought  her  to  her  feet  and  sent  her  down  to  hail  a 
passing  cab.  As  it  whirled  her  through  the  bright  streets 
powdered  with  amber  sunlight  her  brain  throbbed  with 
confused  intentions.  She  did  not  think  of  Moffatt  as  a 
power  she  could  use,  but  simply  as  some  one  who  knew 
her  and  understood  her  grievance.  It  was  essential  to 
her  at  that  moment  to  be  told  that  she  was  right  and 
that  every  one  opposed  to  her  was  wrong. 

At  the  hotel  she  asked  his  number  and  was  carried 
up  in  the  lift.  On  the  landing  she  paused  a  moment, 
disconcerted — it  had  occurred  to  her  that  he  might  not 
be  alone.  But  she  walked  on  quickly,  found  the  num 
ber  and  knocked.  .  .  Moffatt  opened  the  door,  and  she 
glanced  beyond  him  and  saw  that  the  big  bright 
sitting-room  was  empty. 

"Hullo!"  he  exclaimed,  surprised;  and  as  he  stood 
aside  to  let  her  enter  she  saw  him  draw  out  his  watch 
and  glance  at  it  surreptitiously.  He  was  expecting  some 
[5661 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

one,  or  he  had  an  engagement  elsewhere — something 
claimed  him  from  which  she  was  excluded.  The  thought 
flushed  her  with  sudden  resolution.  She  knew  now  what 
she  had  come  for — to  keep  him  from  every  one  else,  to 
keep  him  for  herself  alone. 

"Don't  send  me  away!"  she  said,  and  laid  her  hand 
on  his  beseechingly. 

XLV 

SHE  advanced  into  the  room  and  slowly  looked 
about  her.  The  big  vulgar  writing-table  wreathed 
in  bronze  was  heaped  with  letters  and  papers.  Among 
them  stood  a  lapis  bowl  in  a  Renaissance  mounting  of 
enamel  and  a  vase  of  Phenician  glass  that  was  like  a 
bit  of  rainbow  caught  in  cobwebs.  On  a  table  against 
the  window  a  little  Greek  marble  lifted  its  pure  lines. 
On  every  side  some  rare  and  sensitive  object  seemed  to 
be  shrinking  back  from  the  false  colours  and  crude  con 
tours  of  the  hotel  furniture.  There  were  no  books  in 
the  room,  but  the  florid  console  under  the  mirror  was 
stacked  with  old  numbers  of  Town  Talk  and  the  New 
York  Radiator.  Undine  recalled  the  dingy  hall-room 
that  Moffatt  had  lodged  in  at  Mrs.  Flynn's,  over 
Hober's  livery  stable,  and  her  heart  beat  at  the  signs 
of  his  altered  state.  When  her  eyes  came  back  to  him 
their  lids  were  moist. 

"Don't  send  me  away,"  she  repeated.  He  looked  at 
her  and  smiled.  "What  is  it?  What's  the  matter?" 
[5671 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"I  don't  know — but  I  had  to  come.  To-day,  when  you 
spoke  again  of  sailing,  I  felt  as  if  I  couldn't  stand  it." 
She  lifted  her  eyes  and  looked  in  his  profoundly. 

He  reddened  a  little  under  her  gaze,  but  she  could 
detect  no  softening  or  confusion  in  the  shrewd  steady 
glance  he  gave  her  back. 

"Things  going  wrong  again — is  that  the  trouble?" 
he  merely  asked  with  a  comforting  inflexion. 

"They  always  are  wrong;  it's  all  been  an  awful  mis 
take.  But  I  shouldn't  care  if  you  were  here  and  I  could 
see  you  sometimes.  You're  so  strong:  that's  what  I 
feel  about  you,  Elmer.  I  was  the  only  one  to  feel  it 
that  time  they  all  turned  against  you  out  at  Apex.  .  . 
Do  you  remember  the  afternoon  I  met  you  down  on 
Main  Street,  and  we  walked  out  together  to  the  Park? 
I  knew  then  that  you  were  stronger  than  any  of 
them.  .  ." 

She  had  never  spoken  more  sincerely.  For  the  mo 
ment  all  thought  of  self-interest  was  in  abeyance,  and 
she  felt  again,  as  she  had  felt  that  day,  the  instinctive 
yearning  of  her  nature  to  be  one  with  his.  Something 
in  her  voice  must  have  attested  it,  for  she  saw  a  change 
in  his  face. 

"You're  not  the  beauty  you  were,"  he  said  irrel 
evantly;  "but  you're  a  lot  more  fetching." 

The  oddly  qualified  praise  made  her  laugh  with 
mingled  pleasure  and  annoyance. 

"I  suppose  I  must  be  dreadfully  changed " 

[568] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"You're  all  right! — But  I've  got  to  go  back  home," 
he  broke  off  abruptly.  "I've  put  it  off  too  long." 

She  paled  and  looked  away,  helpless  in  her  sudden 
disappointment.  "I  knew  you'd  say  that.  .  .  And  I  shall 
just  be  left  here.  .  ."  She  sat  down  on  the  sofa  near 
which  they  had  been  standing,  and  two  tears  formed 
on  her  lashes  and  fell. 

Moffatt  sat  down  beside  her,  and  both  were  silent. 
She  had  never  seen  him  at  a  loss  before.  She  made  no 
attempt  to  draw  nearer,  or  to  use  any  of  the  arts  of 
cajolery;  but  presently  she  said,  without  rising:  "I 
saw  you  look  at  your  watch  when  I  came  in.  I  suppose 
somebody  else  is  waiting  for  you." 

"It  don't  matter." 

"Some  other  woman?" 

"It  don't  matter." 

"I've  wondered  so  often — but  of  course  I've  got  no 
right  to  ask."  She  stood  up  slowly,  understanding  that 
he  meant  to  let  her  go. 

"Just  tell  me  one  thing — did  you  never  miss  me?" 

"Oh,  damnably!"  he  brought  out  with  sudden  bit 
terness. 

She  came  nearer,  sinking  her  voice  to  a  low  whisper. 
"It's  the  only  time  I  ever  really  cared — all  through!" 

He  had  risen  too,  and  they  stood  intensely  gazing 
at  each  other.  Moffatt's  face  was  fixed  and  grave, 
as  she  had  seen  it  in  hours  she  now  found  herself  rapidly 
reliving. 

"I  believe  you  did,"  he  said. 
[569] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Oh,  Elmer— if  I'd  known— if  I'd  only  known!" 

He  made  no  answer,  and  she  turned  away,  touching 
with  an  unconscious  hand  the  edge  of  the  lapis  bowl 
among  his  papers. 

"Elmer,  if  you're  going  away  it  can't  do  any  harm 
to  tell  me — is  there  any  one  else?" 

He  gave  a  laugh  that  seemed  to  shake  him  free.  "In 
that  kind  of  way?  Lord,  no!  Too  busy!" 

She  came  close  again  and  laid  a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Then  why  not — why  shouldn't  we ?"  She  leaned 

her  head  back  so  that  her  gaze  slanted  up  through  her 
wet  lashes.  "I  can  do  as  I  please — my  husband  does. 
They  think  so  differently  about  marriage  over  here: 
it's  just  a  business  contract.  As  long  as  a  woman 
doesn't  make  a  show  of  herself  no  one  cares."  She  put 
her  other  hand  up,  so  that  she  held  him  facing  her. 
"I've  always  felt,  all  through  everything,  that  I  be 
longed  to  you." 

Moffatt  left  her  hands  on  his  shoulders,  but  did  not 
lift  his  own  to  clasp  them.  For  a  moment  she  thought 
she  had  mistaken  him,  and  a  leaden  sense  of  shame 
descended  on  her.  Then  he  asked:  "You  say  your 
husband  goes  with  other  women?" 

Lili  Estradina's  taunt  flashed  through  her  and  she 
seized  on  it.  "People  have  told  me  so — his  own  rela 
tions  have.  I've  never  stooped  to  spy  on  him.  .  ." 

"And  the  women  in  your  set — I  suppose  it's  taken 
for  granted  they  all  do  the  same?" 

She  laughed. 

[570] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

"Everything  fixed  up  for  them,  same  as  it  is  for 
the  husbands,  eh?  Nobody  meddles  or  makes  trouble 
if  you  know  the  ropes?" 

"No,  nobody  .  .  .  it's  all  quite  easy.  .  ."  She  stopped, 
her  faint  smile  checked,  as  his  backward  movement 
made  her  hands  drop  from  his  shoulders. 

"And  that's  what  you're  proposing  to  me?  That 
you  and  I  should  do  like  the  rest  of  'em?"  His  face 
had  lost  its  comic  roundness  and  grown  harsh  and 
dark,  as  it  had  when  her  father  had  taken  her  away 
from  him  at  Opake.  He  turned  on  his  heel,  walked  the 
length  of  the  room  and  halted  with  his  back  to  her  in 
the  embrasure  of  the  window.  There  he  paused  a  full 
minute,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  staring  out  at  the 
perpetual  interweaving  of  motors  in  the  luminous  set 
ting  of  the  square.  Then  he  turned  and  spoke  from 
where  he  stood. 

"Look  here,  Undine,  if  I'm  to  have  you  again  I  don't 
want  to  have  you  that  way.  That  time  out  in  Apex, 
when  everybody  in  the  place  was  against  me,  and  I 
was  down  and  out,  you  stood  up  to  them  and  stuck 
by  me.  Remember  that  walk  down  Main  Street?  Don't 
I! — and  the  way  the  people  glared  and  hurried  by; 
and  how  you  kept  on  alongside  of  me,  talking  and 
laughing,  and  looking  your  Sunday  best.  When  Abner 
Spragg  came  out  to  Opake  after  us  and  pulled  you 
back  I  was  pretty  sore  at  your  deserting;  but  I  came 
to  see  it  was  natural  enough.  You  were  only  a  spoilt 
1671] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

girl,  used  to  having  everything  you  wanted;  and  I 
couldn't  give  you  a  thing  then,  and  the  folks  you'd 
been  taught  to  believe  in  all  told  you  I  never  would. 
Well,  I  did  look  like  a  back  number,  and  no  blame  to 
you  for  thinking  so.  I  used  to  say  it  to  myself  over  and 
over  again,  laying  awake  nights  and  totting  up  my 
mistakes  .  .  .  and  then  there  were  days  when  the  wind 
set  another  way,  and  I  knew  I'd  pull  it  off  yet,  and  I 
thought  you  might  have  held  on.  .  ."  He  stopped,  his 
head  a  little  lowered,  his  concentrated  gaze  on  her 
flushed  face.  "Well,  anyhow,"  he  broke  out,  "y°u  were 
my  wife  once,  and  you  were  my  wife  first — and  if  you 
want  to  come  back  you've  got  to  come  that  way:  not 
slink  through  the  back  way  when  there's  no  one  watch 
ing,  but  walk  in  by  the  front  door,  with  your  head 
up,  and  your  Main  Street  look." 

Since  the  days  when  he  had  poured  out  to  her  his 
great  fortune-building  projects  she  had  never  heard 
him  make  so  long  a  speech;  and  her  heart,  as  she  lis 
tened,  beat  with  a  new  joy  and  terror.  It  seemed  to 
her  that  the  great  moment  of  her  life  had  come  at  last 
— the  moment  all  her  minor  failures  and  successes  had 
been  building  up  with  blind  indefatigable  hands. 

"Elmer— Elmer "  she  sobbed  out. 

She  expected  to  find  herself  in  his  arms,  shut  in  and 
shielded  from  all  her  troubles;  but  he  stood  his  ground 
across  the  room,  immovable. 

"Is  it  yes?" 

[572] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

She  faltered  the  word  after  him:  "Yes ?" 

"Are  you  going  to  marry  me?" 

She  stared,  bewildered.  "Why,  Elmer — marry  you? 
You  forget!" 

"Forget  what?  That  you  don't  want  to  give  up 
what  you've  got?" 

"How  can  I?  Such  things  are  not  done  out  here. 

Why,  I'm  a  Catholic;  and  the  Catholic  Church " 

She  broke  off,  reading  the  end  in  his  face.  "But  later, 
perhaps  .  .  .  things  might  change.  Oh,  Elmer,  if  only 
you'd  stay  over  here  and  let  me  see  you  sometimes!" 

"Yes — the  way  your  friends  see  each  other.  We're 
differently  made  out  in  Apex.  When  I  want  that  sort 
of  thing  I  go  down  to  North  Fifth  Street  for  it." 

She  paled  under  the  retort,  but  her  heart  beat  high 
with  it.  What  he  asked  was  impossible — and  she  gloried 
in  his  asking  it.  Feeling  her  power,  she  tried  to  tem 
porize.  "At  least  if  you  stayed  we  could  be  friends — I 
shouldn't  feel  so  terribly  alone." 

He  laughed  impatiently.  "Don't  talk  magazine  stuff 
to  me,  Undine  Spragg.  I  guess  we  want  each  other  the 
same  way.  Only  our  ideas  are  different.  You've  got 
all  muddled,  living  out  here  among  a  lot  of  loafers  who 
call  it  a  career  to  run  round  after  every  petticoat.  I've 
got  my  job  out  at  home,  and  I  belong  where  my  job  is." 

"Are  you  going  to  be  tied  to  business  all  your  life?" 
Her  smile  was  faintly  depreciatory. 

"I  guess  business  is  tied  to  me:  Wall  Street  acts  as 
f  5731 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

if  it  couldn't  get  along  without  me."  He  gave  his 
shoulders  a  shake  and  moved  a  few  steps  nearer.  "See 
here,  Undine — you're  the  one  that  don't  understand. 
If  I  was  to  sell  out  to-morrow,  and  spend  the  rest  of 
my  life  reading  art  magazines  in  a  pink  villa,  I  wouldn't 
do  what  you're  asking  me.  And  I've  about  as  much 
idea  of  dropping  business  as  you  have  of  taking  to  dis 
trict  nursing.  There  are  things  a  man  doesn't  do.  I 
understand  why  your  husband  won't  sell  those  tapes 
tries — till  he's  got  to.  His  ancestors  are  his  business: 
Wall  Street's  mine." 

He  paused,  and  they  silently  faced  each  other.  Un 
dine  made  no  attempt  to  approach  him:  she  under 
stood  that  if  he  yielded  it  would  be  only  to  recover  his 
advantage  and  deepen  her  feeling  of  defeat.  She  put 
out  her  hand  and  took  up  the  sunshade  she  had  dropped 
on  entering.  "I  suppose  it's  good-bye  then,"  she  said. 

"You  haven't  got  the  nerve?" 

"The  nerve  for  what?" 

"To  come  where  you  belong:   with  me." 

She  laughed  a  little  and  then  sighed.  She  wished 
he  would  come  nearer,  or  look  at  her  differently:  she 
felt,  under  his  cool  eye,  no  more  compelling  than  a 
woman  of  wax  in  a  show-case. 

"How  could  I  get  a  divorce?  With  my  religion 

"Why,  you  were  born  a  Baptist,  weren't  you?  That's 
where  you  used  to  attend  church  when  I  waited  round 
the  corner,  Sunday  mornings,  with  one  of  old  Hober's 
[5741 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

buggies."  They  both  laughed,  and  he  went  on:  "If 
you'll  come  along  home  with  me  I'll  see  you  get  your 
divorce  all  right.  Who  cares  what  they  do  over  here? 
You're  an  American,  ain't  you?  What  you  want  is  the 
home-made  article." 

She  listened,  discouraged  yet  fascinated  by  his 
sturdy  inaccessibility  to  all  her  arguments  and  objec 
tions.  He  knew  what  he  wanted,  saw  his  road  before 
him,  and  acknowledged  no  obstacles.  Her  defense  was 
drawn  from  reasons  he  did  not  understand,  or  based 
on  difficulties  that  did  not  exist  for  him;  and  gradually 
she  felt  herself  yielding  to  the  steady  pressure  of  his 
will.  Yet  the  reasons  he  brushed  away  came  back  with 
redoubled  tenacity  whenever  he  paused  long  enough 
for  her  to  picture  the  consequences  of  what  he  exacted. 

"You  don't  know — you  don't  understand —  "  she 
kept  repeating;  but  she  knew  that  his  ignorance  was 
part  of  his  terrible  power,  and  that  it  was  hppeless  to 
try  to  make  him  feel  the  value  of  what  he  was  asking 
her  to  give  up. 

"See  here,  Undine,"  he  said  slowly,  as  if  he  meas 
ured  her  resistance  though  he  couldn't  fathom  it,  "I 
guess  it  had  better  be  yes  or  no  right  here.  It  ain't 
going  to  do  either  of  us  any  good  to  drag  this  thing 
out.  If  you  want  to  come  back  to  me,  come — if  you 
don't,  we'll  shake  hands  on  it  now.  I'm  due  in  Apex 
for  a  directors'  meeting  on  the  twentieth,  and  as  it  is 
I'll  have  to  cable  for  a  special  to  get  me  out  there. 
[575] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

No,  no,  don't  cry — it  ain't  that  kind  of  a  story  .  .  .  but 
I'll  have  a  deck  suite  for  you  on  the  Semantic  if  you'll 
sail  with  me  the  day  after  to-morrow." 


XLVI 

IN    the    great   high-ceilinged   library   of   a   private 
hotel  overlooking  one  of  the  new  quarters  of  Paris, 
Paul   Marvell   stood   listlessly    gazing    out    into    the 
twilight. 

The  trees  were  budding  symmetrically  along  the 
avenue  below;  and  Paul,  looking  down,  saw,  between 
windows  and  tree-tops,  a  pair  of  tall  iron  gates  with 
gilt  ornaments,  the  marble  curb  of  a  semi-circular 
drive,  and  bands  of  spring  flowers  set  in  turf.  He  was 
now  a  big  boy  of  nearly  nine,  who  went  to  a  fashionable 
private  school,  and  he  had  come  home  that  day  for 
the  Easter  holidays.  He  had  not  been  back  since 
Christmas,  and  it  was  the  first  time  he  had  seen  the 
new  hotel  which  his  step-father  had  bought,  and  in 
which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Moffatt  had  hastily  established 
themselves,  a  few  weeks  earlier,  on  their  return  from 
a  flying  trip  to  America.  They  were  always  coming 
and  going;  during  the  two  years  since  their  marriage 
they  had  been  perpetually  dashing  over  to  New  York 
and  back,  or  rushing  down  to  Rome  or  up  to  the  Enga- 
dine:  Paul  never  knew  where  they  were  except  when 
a  telegram  announced  that  they  were  going  somewhere 
[576] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

else.  He  did  not  even  know  that  there  was  any  method 
of  communication  between  mothers  and  sons  less  la 
conic  than  that  of  the  electric  wire;  and  once,  when  a 
boy  at  school  asked  him  if  his  mother  often  wrote,  he 
had  answered  in  all  sincerity:  "Oh  yes — I  got  a  tel 
egram  last  week." 

He  had  been  almost  sure — as  sure  as  he  ever  was  of 
anything — that  he  should  find  her  at  home  when  he 
arrived;  but  a  message  (for  she  hadn't  had  time  to 
telegraph)  apprised  him  that  she  and  Mr.  Moffatt 
had  run  down  to  Deauville  to  look  at  a  house  they 
thought  of  hiring  for  the  summer;  they  were  taking 
an  early  train  back,  arid  would  be  at  home  for  dinner — 
were  in  fact  having  a  lot  of  people  to  dine. 

It  was  just  what  he  ought  to  have  expected,  and  had 
been  used  to  ever  since  he  could  remember;  and  gen 
erally  he  didn't  much  mind,  especially  since  his  mother 
had  become  Mrs.  Moffatt,  and  the  father  he  had  been 
most  used  to,  and  liked  best,  had  abruptly  disappeared 
from  his  life.  But  the  new  hotel  was  big  and  strange, 
and  his  own  room,  in  which  there  was  not  a  toy  or  a 
book,  or  one  of  his  dear  battered  relics  (none  of  the  new 
servants — they  were  always  new — could  find  his  things, 
or  think  where  they  had  been  put) ,  seemed  the  loneliest 
spot  in  the  whole  house.  He  had  gone  up  there  after 
his  solitary  luncheon,  served  in  the  immense  marble 
dining-room  by  a  footman  on  the  same  scale,  and  had 
tried  to  occupy  himself  with  pasting  post-cards  into 
[577] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

his  album;  but  the  newness  and  sumptuousness  of  the 
room  embarrassed  him — the  white  fur  rugs  and  bro 
cade  chairs  seemed  maliciously  on  the  watch  for  smears 
and  ink-spots — and  after  a  while  he  pushed  the  album 
aside  and  began  to  roam  through  the  house. 

He  went  to  all  the  rooms  in  turn:  his  mother's  first, 
the  wonderful  lacy  bedroom,  all  pale  silks  and  velvets, 
artful  mirrors  and  veiled  lamps,  and  the  boudoir  as 
big  as  a  drawing-room,  with  pictures  he  would  have 
liked  to  know  about,  and  tables  and  cabinets  holding 
things  he  was  afraid  to  touch.  Mr.  Moffatt's  rooms 
came  next.  They  were  soberer  and  darker,  but  as  big 
and  splendid;  and  in  the  bedroom,  on  the  brown  wall, 
hung  a  single  picture — the  portrait  of  a  boy  in  grey 
velvet — that  interested  Paul  most  of  all.  The  boy's 
hand  rested  on  the  head  of  a  big  dog,  and  he  looked 
infinitely  noble  and  charming,  and  yet  (in  spite  of  the 
dog)  so  sad  and  lonely  that  he  too  might  have  come 
home  that  very  day  to  a  strange  house  in  which  none 
of  his  old  things  could  be  found. 

From  these  rooms  Paul  wandered  downstairs  again. 
The  library  attracted  him  most:  there  were  rows  and 
rows  of  books,  bound  in  dim  browns  and  golds,  and 
old  faded  reds  as  rich  as  velvet:  they  all  looked  as  if 
they  might  have  had  stories  in  them  as  splendid  as 
their  bindings.  But  the  bookcases  were  closed  with 
gilt  trellising,  and  when  Paul  reached  up  to  open  one, 
a  servant  told  him  that  Mr.  Moffatt's  secretary  kept 
[5781 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

them  locked  because  the  books  were  too  valuable  to 
be  taken  down.  This  seemed  to  make  the  library  as 
strange  as  the  rest  of  the  house,  and  he  passed  on  ta 
the  ballroom  at  the  back.  Through  its  closed  doors  he 
heard  a  sound  of  hammering,  and  when  he  tried  the 
door-handle  a  servant  passing  with  a  tray-full  of  glasses 
told  him  that  "they"  hadn't  finished,  and  wouldn't 
let  anybody  in. 

The  mysterious  pronoun  somehow  increased  Paul's 
sense  of  isolation,  and  he  went  on  to  the  drawing-rooms, 
steering  his  way  prudently  between  the  gold  arm 
chairs  and  shining  tables,  and  wondering  whether  the 
wigged  and  corseleted  heroes  on  the  walls  represented 
Mr.  Moffatt's  ancestors,  and  why,  if  they  did,  he  looked 
so  little  like  them.  The  dining-room  beyond  was  more 
amusing,  because  busy  servants  were  already  laying 
the  long  table.  It  was  too  early  for  the  florist,  and  the 
centre  of  the  table  was  empty,  but  down  the  sides  were 
gold  baskets  heaped  with  pulpy  summer  fruits — figs, 
strawberries  and  big  blushing  nectarines.  Between 
them  stood  crystal  decanters  with  red  and  yellow  wine, 
and  little  dishes  full  of  sweets;  and  against  the  walls 
were  sideboards  with  great  pieces  of  gold  and  silver, 
ewers  and  urns  and  branching  candelabra,  which 
sprinkled  the  green  marble  walls  with  starlike  reflec 
tions. 

After  a  while  he  grew  tired  of  watching  the  coming 
and  going  of  white-sleeved  footmen,  and  of  listening  to 
[5791 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

the  butler's  vociferated  orders,  and  strayed  back  into 
the  library.  The  habit  of  solitude  had  given  him  a  pas 
sion  for  the  printed  page,  and  if  he  could  have  found  a 
book  anywhere — any  kind  of  a  book — he  would  have 
forgotten  the  long  hours  and  the  empty  house.  But 
the  tables  in  the  library  held  only  massive  unused 
inkstands  and  immense  immaculate  blotters:  not  a 
single  volume  had  slipped  its  golden  prison. 

His  loneliness  had  grown  overwhelming,  and  he  sud 
denly  thought  of  Mrs.  Heeny 's  clippings.  His  mother, 
alarmed  by  an  insidious  gain  in  weight,  had  brought 
the  masseuse  back  from  New  York  with  her,  and  Mrs. 
Heeny,  with  her  old  black  bag  and  waterproof,  was 
established  in  one  of  the  grand  bedrooms  lined  with 
mirrors.  She  had  been  loud  in  her  joy  at  seeing  her 
little  friend  that  morning,  but  four  years  had  passed 
since  their  last  parting,  and  her  personality  had  grown 
remote  to  him.  He  saw  too  many  people,  and  they 
too  often  disappeared  and  were  replaced  by  others: 
his  scattered  affections  had  ended  by  concentrating 
themselves  on  the  charming  image  of  the  gentleman 
he  called  his  French  father;  and  since  his  French 
father  had  vanished  no  one  else  seemed  to  matter  much 
to  him. 

"Oh,  well,"  Mrs.   Heeny  had  said,  discerning  the 

reluctance  under  his  civil  greeting,  "I  guess  you're  as 

strange  here  as  I  am,  and  we're  both  pretty  strange  to 

each  other.  You  just  go  and  look  round,  and  see  what 

[580] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

a  lovely  home  your  Ma's  got  to  live  in;  and  when  you 
get  tired  of  that,  come  up  here  to  me  and  I'll  give  you 
a  look  at  my  clippings." 

The  word  woke  a  train  of  dormant  associations,  and 
Paul  saw  himself  seated  on  a  dingy  carpet,  between  two 
familiar  taciturn  old  presences,  while  he  rummaged  in 
the  depths  of  a  bag  stuffed  with  strips  of  newspaper. 

He  found  Mrs.  Heeny  sitting  in  a  pink  arm-chair, 
her  bonnet  perched  on  a  pink-shaded  electric  lamp  and 
her  numerous  implements  spread  out  on  an  immense 
pink  toilet-table.  Vague  as  his  recollection  of  her  was, 
she  gave  him  at  once  a  sense  of  reassurance  that  noth 
ing  else  in  the  house  conveyed,  and  after  he  had  ex 
amined  all  her  scissors  and  pastes  and  nail-polishers 
he  turned  to  the  bag,  which  stood  on  the  carpet  at  her 
feet  as  if  she  were  waiting  for  a  train. 

"My,  my!"  she  said,  "do  you  want  to  get  into  that 
again?  How  you  used  to  hunt  in  it  for  taffy,  to  be  sure, 
when  your  Pa  brought  you  up  to  Grandma  Spragg's 
o'  Saturdays!  Well,  I'm  afraid  there  ain't  any  taffy  in 
it  now;  but  there's  piles  and  piles  of  lovely  new  clip 
pings  you  ain't  seen." 

"My  Papa?"  He  paused,  his  hand  among  the  strips 
of  newspaper.  "My  Papa  never  saw  my  Grandma 
Spragg.  He  never  went  to  America." 

"Never  went  to  America?  Your  Pa  never ?  Why, 

land  alive!"  Mrs.  Heeny  gasped,  a  blush  empurpling 

her  large  warm  face.  "Why,  Paul  Marvell,  don't  you 

[581] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

remember  your  own  father,  you  that  bear  his  name?" 
she  exclaimed. 

The  boy  blushed  also,  conscious  that  it  must  have 
been  wrong  to  forget,  and  yet  not  seeing  how  he  was 
to  blame. 

"That  one  died  a  long  long  time  ago,  didn't  he?  I 
was  thinking  of  my  French  father,"  he  explained. 

"Oh,  mercy,"  ejaculated  Mrs.  Heeny;  and  as  if  to 
cut  the  conversation  short  she  stooped  over,  creaking 
like  a  ship,  and  thrust  her  plump  strong  hand  into  the 
bag. 

"Here,  now,  just  you  look  at  these  clippings — I 
guess  you'll  find  a  lot  in  them  about  your  Ma. — Where 
do  they  come  from?  Why,  out  of  the  papers,  of  course," 
she  added,  in  response  to  Paul's  enquiry.  "You'd 
oughter  start  a  scrap-book  yourself — you're  plenty  old 
enough.  You  could  make  a  beauty  just  about  your  Ma, 
with  her  picture  pasted  in  the  front — and  another  about 
Mr.  Moffatt  and  his  collections.  There's  one  I  cut  out 
the  other  day  that  says  he's  the  greatest  collector  in 
America." 

Paul  listened,  fascinated.  He  had  the  feeling  that 
Mrs.  Heeny's  clippings,  aside  from  their  great  intrinsic 
interest,  might  furnish  him  the  clue  to  many  things  he 
didn't  understand,  and  that  nobody  had  ever  had  time 
to  explain  to  him.  His  mother's  marriages,  for  instance: 
he  was  sure  there  was  a  great  deal  to  find  out  about 
them.  But  she  always  said:  "I'll  tell  you  all  about 
[5821 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

it  when  I  come  back" — and  when  she  came  back  it 
was  invariably  to  rush  off  somewhere  else.  So  he  had 
remained  without  a  key  to  her  transitions,  and  had  had 
to  take  for  granted  numberless  things  that  seemed  to 
have  no  parallel  in  the  experience  of  the  other  boys  he 
knew. 

"Here — here  it  is,"  said  Mrs.  Heeny,  adjusting  the 
big  tortoiseshell  spectacles  she  had  taken  to  wearing, 
and  reading  out  in  a  slow  chant  that  seemed  to  Paul  to 
come  out  of  some  lost  remoteness  of  his  infancy. 

'  'It  is  reported  in  London  that  the  price  paid  by 
Mr.  Elmer  Moffatt  for  the  celebrated  Grey  Boy  is  the 
largest  sum  ever  given  for  a  Vandyck.  Since  Mr.  Mof 
fatt  began  to  buy  extensively  it  is  estimated  in  art 
circles  that  values  have  gone  up  at  least  seventy-five 
per  cent.'  ' 

But  the  price  of  the  Grey  Boy  did  not  interest  Paul, 
and  he  said  a  little  impatiently:  "I'd  rather  hear  about 
my  mother." 

"To  be  sure  you  would!  You  wait  now."  Mrs.  Heeny 
made  another  dive,  and  again  began  to  spread  her 
clippings  on  her  lap  like  cards  on  a  big  black  table. 

"Here's  one  about  her  last  portrait — no,  here's  a 
better  one  about  her  pearl  necklace,  the  one  Mr.  Mof 
fatt  gave  her  last  Christmas.  'The  necklace,  which 
was  formerly  the  property  of  an  Austrian  Archduchess, 
is  composed  of  five  hundred  perfectly  matched  pearls 
that  took  thirty  years  to  collect.  It  is  estimated  among 
[5831 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

dealers  in  precious  stones  that  since  Mr.  Moffatt  began 
to  buy  the  price  of  pearls  has  gone  up  over  fifty  per 
cent."5 

Even  this  did  not  fix  Paul's  attention.  He  wanted  to 
hear  about  his  mother  and  Mr.  Moffatt,  and  not  about 
their  things;  and  he  didn't  quite  know  how  to  frame 
his  question.  But  Mrs.  Heeny  looked  kindly  at  him 
and  he  tried.  "Why  is  mother  married  to  Mr.  Moffatt 
now?" 

"Why,  you  must  know  that  much,  Paul."  Mrs. 
Heeny  again  looked  warm  and  worried.  "She's  married 
to  him  because  she  got  a  divorce — that's  why."  And 
suddenly  she  had  another  inspiration.  "Didn't  she 
ever  send  you  over  any  of  those  splendid  clippings  that 
came  out  the  time  they  were  married?  Why,  I  declare, 
that's  a  shame;  but  I  must  have  some  of  'em  right 
here." 

She  dived  again,  shuffled,  sorted,  and  pulled  out  a 
long  discoloured  strip.  "I've  carried  this  round  with 
me  ever  since,  and  so  many's  wanted  to  read  it,  it's  all 
torn."  She  smoothed  out  the  paper  and  began: 

"  'Divorce  and  remarriage  of  Mrs.  Undine  Spragg- 
de  Chelles.  American  Marquise  renounces  ancient 
French  title  to  wed  Railroad  King.  Quick  work  un 
tying  and  tying.  Boy  and  girl  romance  renewed. 

"  'Reno,  November  23d.  The  Marquise  de  Chelles, 
of  Paris,  France,  formerly  Mrs.  Undine  Spragg  Marvell, 
of  Apex  City  and  New  York,  got  a  decree  of  divorce 
[5841 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

at  a  special  session  of  the  Court  last  night,  and  was 
remarried  fifteen  minutes  later  to  Mr.  Elmer  Moffatt, 
the  billionaire  Railroad  King,  who  was  the  Marquise's 
first  husband. 

"  'No  case  has  ever  been  railroaded  through  the  di 
vorce  courts  of  this  State  at  a  higher  rate  of  speed:  as 
Mr.  Moffatt  said  last  night,  before  he  and  his  bride 
jumped  onto  their  east-bound  special,  every  record 
has  been  broken.  It  was  just  six  months  ago  yesterday 
that  the  present  Mrs.  Moffatt  came  to  Reno  to  look 
for  her  divorce.  Owing  to  a  delayed  train,  her  counsel 
was  late  yesterday  in  receiving  some  necessary  papers, 
and  it  was  feared  the  decision  would  have  to  be  held 
over;  but  Judge  Toomey,  who  is  a  personal  friend  of 
Mr.  Moffatt's,  held  a  night  session  and  rushed  it 
through  so  that  the  happy  couple  could  have  the  knot 
tied  and  board  their  special  in  time  for  Mrs.  Moffatt 
to  spend  Thanksgiving  in  New  York  with  her  aged 
parents.  The  hearing  began  at  seven  ten  p.  m.  and  at 
eight  o'clock  the  bridal  couple  were  steaming  out  of 
the  station. 

'  *  At  the  trial  Mrs.  Spragg-de  Chelles,  who  wore 
copper  velvet  and  sables,  gave  evidence  as  to  the  bru 
tality  of  her  French  husband,  but  she  had  to  talk  fast 
as  time  pressed,  and  Judge  Toomey  wrote  the  entry  at 
top  speed,  and  then  jumped  into  a  motor  with  the  happy 
couple  and  drove  to  the  Justice  of  the  Peace,  where  he 
acted  as  best  man  to  the  bridegroom.  The  latter  is 
[585] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

said  to  be  one  of  the  six  wealthiest  men  east  of  the 
Rockies.  His  gifts  to  the  bride  are  a  necklace  and  tiara 
of  pigeon-blood  rubies  belonging  to  Queen  Marie  An 
toinette,  a  million  dollar  cheque  and  a  house  in  New 
York.  The  happy  pair  will  pass  the  honeymoon  in  Mrs. 
Moffatt's  new  home,  5009  Fifth  Avenue,  which  is  an 
exact  copy  of  the  Pitti  Palace,  Florence.  They  plan  to 
spend  their  springs  in  France/" 

Mrs.  Heeny  drew  a  long  breath,  folded  the  paper 
and  took  off  her  spectacles.  "There,"  she  said,  with 
a  benignant  smile  and  a  tap  on  Paul's  cheek,  "now 
you  see  how  it  all  happened.  .  ." 

Paul  was  not  sure  he  did;  but  he  made  no  answer. 
His  mind  was  too  full  of  troubled  thoughts.  In  the 
dazzling  description  of  his  mother's  latest  nuptials  one 
fact  alone  stood  out  for  him — that  she  had  said  things 
that  weren't  true  of  his  French  father.  Something  he 
had  half-guessed  in  her,  and  averted  his  frightened 
thoughts  from,  took  his  little  heart  in  an  iron  grasp. 
She  said  things  that  weren't  true.  .  .  That  was  what 
he  had  always  feared  to  find  out.  .  .  She  had  got  up 
and  said  before  a  lot  of  people  things  that  were  awfully 
false  about  his  dear  French  father.  .  . 

The  sound  of  a  motor  turning  in  at  the  gates  made 
Mrs.  Heeny  exclaim  "Here  they  are!"  and  a  moment 
later  Paul  heard  his  mother  calling  to  him.  He  got 
up  reluctantly,  and  stood  wavering  till  he  felt  Mrs. 
Heeny 's  astonished  eye  upon  him.  Then  he  heard  Mr. 
[586] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

Moffatt's  jovial  shout  of  "Paul  Marvell,  ahoy  there!" 
and  roused  himself  to  run  downstairs. 

As  he  reached  the  landing  he  saw  that  the  ballroom 
doors  were  open  and  all  the  lustres  lit.  His  mother  and 
Mr.  Moffatt  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  shining  floor, 
looking  up  at  the  walls;  and  Paul's  heart  gave  a  won 
dering  bound,  for  there,  set  in  great  gilt  panels,  were 
the  tapestries  that  had  always  hung  in  the  gallery  at 
Saint  Desert. 

"Well,  Senator,  it  feels  good  to  shake  your  fist 
again!"  his  step-father  said,  taking  him  in  a  friendly 
grasp;  and  his  mother,  who  looked  handsomer  and 
taller  and  more  splendidly  dressed  than  ever,  exclaimed : 
"Mercy!  how  they've  cut  his  hair!"  before  she  bent  to 
kiss  him. 

"Oh,  mother,  mother!"  he  burst  out,  feeling,  be 
tween  his  mother's  face  and  the  others,  hardly  less 
familiar,  on  the  walls,  that  he  was  really  at  home  again, 
and  not  in  a  strange  house. 

"Gracious,  how  you  squeeze!"  she  protested, 
loosening  his  arms.  "But  you  look  splendidly — and 
how  you've  grown!"  She  turned  away  from  him  and 
began  to  inspect  the  tapestries  critically.  "Somehow 
they  look  smaller  here,"  she  said  with  a  tinge  of  disap 
pointment. 

Mr.  Moffatt  gave  a  slight  laugh  and  walked  slowly 
down  the  room,  as  if  to  study  its  effect.  As  he  turned 
back  his  wife  said:  "I  didn't  think  you'd  ever  get  them." 
[5871 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

He  laughed  again,  more  complacently.  "Well,  I 
don't  know  as  I  ever  should  have,  if  General  Arlington 
hadn't  happened  to  bust  up." 

They  both  smiled,  and  Paul,  seeing  his  mother's 
softened  face,  stole  his  hand  in  hers  and  began: 
"Mother,  I  took  a  prize  in  composition " 

"Did  you?  You  must  tell  me  about  it  to-morrow. 
No,  I  really  must  rush  off  now  and  dress — I  haven't 
even  placed  the  dinner-cards."  She  freed  her  hand, 
and  as  she  turned  to  go  Paul  heard  Mr.  Moffatt 
say:  "Can't  you  ever  give  him  a  minute's  time, 
Undine?" 

She  made  no  answer,  but  sailed  through  the  door 
with  her  head  high,  as  she  did  when  anything  annoyed 
her;  and  Paul  and  his  step-father  stood  alone  in  the 
illuminated  ball-room. 

Mr.  Moffatt  smiled  good-naturedly  at  the  little  boy 
and  then  turned  back  to  the  contemplation  of  the 
hangings. 

"I  guess  you  know  where  those  come  from,  don't 
you?"  he  asked  in  a  tone  of  satisfaction. 

"Oh,  yes,"  Paul  answered  eagerly,  with  a  hope  he 
dared  not  utter  that,  since  the  tapestries  were  there, 
his  French  father  might  be  coming  too. 

"You're  a  smart  boy  to  remember  them.  I  don't 
suppose  you  ever  thought  you'd  see  them  here?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Paul,  embarrassed. 

"Well,  I  guess  you  wouldn't  have  if  their  owner 
[588] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

hadn't  been  in  a  pretty  tight  place.  It  was  like  drawing 
teeth  for  him  to  let  them  go." 

Paul  flushed  up,  and  again  the  iron  grasp  was  on  his 
heart.  He  hadn't,  hitherto,  actually  disliked  Mr.  Mof- 
fatt,  who  was  always  in  a  good  humour,  and  seemed 
less  busy  and  absent-minded  than  his  mother;  but  at 
that  instant  he  felt  a  rage  of  hate  for  him.  He  turned 
away  and  burst  into  tears. 

"Why,  hullo,  old  chap— why,  what's  up?"  Mr. 
Moffatt  was  on  his  knees  beside  the  boy,  and  the  arms 
embracing  him  were  firm  and  friendly.  But  Paul,  for 
the  life  of  him,  couldn't  answer :  he  could  only  sob  and 
sob  as  the  great  surges  of  loneliness  broke  over  him. 

"Is  it  because  your  mother  hadn't  time  for  you? 
Well,  she's  like  that,  you  know;  and  you  and  I  have 
got  to  lump  it,"  Mr.  Moffatt  continued,  getting  to  his 
feet.  He  stood  looking  down  at  the  boy  with  a  queer 
smile.  "If  we  two  chaps  stick  together  it  won't  be  so 
bad — we  can  keep  each  other  warm,  don't  you  see?  I 
like  you  first  rate,  you  know;  when  you're  big  enough  I 
mean  to  put  you  in  my  business.  And  it  looks  as  if  one 
of  these  days  you'd  be  the  richest  boy  in  America.  .  ." 

The  lamps  were  lit,  the  vases  full  of  flowers,  the  foot 
men  assembled  on  the  landing  and  in  the  vestibule 
below,  when  Undine  descended  to  the  drawing-room. 
As  she  passed  the  ballroom  door  she  glanced  in  ap 
provingly  at  the  tapestries.  They  really  looked  better 
[589] 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

than  she  had  been  willing  to  admit:  they  made  her 
ballroom  the  handsomest  in  Paris.  But  something  had 
put  her  out  on  the  way  up  from  Deauville,  and  the 
simplest  way  of  easing  her  nerves  had  been  to  affect 
indifference  to  the  tapestries.  Now  she  had  quite  re 
covered  her  good  humour,  and  as  she  glanced  down 
the  list  of  guests  she  was  awaiting  she  said  to  herself, 
with  a  sigh  of  satisfaction,  that  she  was  glad  she  had 
put  on  her  rubies. 

For  the  first  time  since  her  marriage  to  Moffatt  she 
was  about  to  receive  in  her  house  the  people  she  most 
wished  to  see  there.  The  beginnings  had  been  a  little 
difficult;  their  first  attempt  in  New  York  was  so  un 
promising  that  she  feared  they  might  not  be  able  to 
live  down  the  sensational  details  of  their  reunion,  and 
had  insisted  on  her  husband's  taking  her  back  to  Paris. 
But  her  apprehensions  were  unfounded.  It  was  only 
necessary  to  give  people  the  time  to  pretend  they  had 
forgotten;  and  already  they  were  all  pretending  beau 
tifully.  The  French  world  had  of  course  held  out  long 
est;  it  had  strongholds  she  might  never  capture.  But 
already  seceders  were  beginning  to  show  themselves, 
and  her  dinner-list  that  evening  was  graced  with  the 
names  of  an  authentic  Duke  and  a  not  too-damaged 
Countess.  In  addition,  of  course,  she  had  the  Shallums, 
the  Chauncey  Ellings,  May  Beringer,  Dicky  Bowles, 
Walsingham  Popple,  and  the  rest  of  the  New  York 
frequenters  of  the  Nouveau  Luxe;  she  had  even,  at  the 
[590] 


THE   CUSTOM  OF  THE   COUNTRY 

last  minute,  had  the  amusement  of  adding  Peter  Van 
Degen  to  their  number.  In  the  evening  there  were  to 
be  Spanish  dancing  and  Russian  singing;  and  Dicky 
Bowles  had  promised  her  a  Grand  Duke  for  her  next 
dinner,  if  she  could  secure  the  new  tenor  who  always 
refused  to  sing  in  private  houses. 

Even  now,  however,  she  was  not  always  happy. 
She  had  everything  she  wanted,  but  she  still  felt,  at 
times,  that  there  were  other  things  she  might  want  if 
she  knew  about  them.  And  there  had  been  moments 
lately  when  she  had  had  to  confess  to  herself  that  Mof- 
fatt  did  not  fit  into  the  picture.  At  first  she  had  been 
dazzled  by  his  success  and  subdued  by  his  authority. 
He  had  given  her  all  she  had  ever  wished  for,  and  more 
than  she  had  ever  dreamed  of  having:  he  had  made 
up  to  her  for  all  her  failures  and  blunders,  and  there 
were  hours  when  she  still  felt  his  dominion  and  exulted 
in  it.  But  there  were  others  when  she  saw  his  defects 
and  was  irritated  by  them :  \vhen  his  loudness  and  red 
ness,  his  misplaced  joviality,  his  familiarity  with  the 
servants,  his  alternating  swagger  and  ceremony  with 
her  friends,  jarred  on  perceptions  that  had  developed 
in  her  unawares.  Now  and  then  she  caught  herself 
thinking  that  his  two  predecessors — who  were  grad 
ually  becoming  merged  in  her  memory — would  have 
said  this  or  that  differently,  behaved  otherwise  in 
such  and  such  a  case.  And  the  comparison  was  almost 
always  to  Moffatt's  disadvantage. 
[5911 


THE  CUSTOM  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

This  evening,  however,  she  thought  of  him  indul 
gently.  She  was  pleased  with  his  clever  stroke  in 
capturing  the  Saint  Desert  tapestries,  which  General 
Arlington's  sudden  bankruptcy,  and  a  fresh  gambling 
scandal  of  Hubert's,  had  compelled  their  owner  to  part 
with.  She  knew  that  Raymond  de  Chelles  had  told  the 
dealers  he  would  sell  his  tapestries  to  anyone  but  Mr. 
Elmer  Moffatt,  or  a  buyer  acting  for  him;  and  it 
amused  her  to  think  that,  thanks  to  Elmer's  astuteness, 
they  were  under  her  roof  after  all,  and  that  Raymond 
and  all  his  clan  were  by  this  time  aware  of  it.  These 
facts  disposed  her  favourably  toward  her  husband,  and 
deepened  the  sense  of  well-being  with  which — according 
to  her  invariable  habit — she  walked  up  to  the  mirror 
above  the  mantelpiece  and  studied  the  image  it  reflected. 

She  was  still  lost  in  this  pleasing  contemplation  when 
her  husband  entered,  looking  stouter  and  redder  than 
ever,  in  evening  clothes  that  were  a  little  too  tight. 
His  shirt  front  was  as  glossy  as  his  baldness,  and  in 
his  buttonhole  he  wore  the  red  ribbon  bestowed  on 
him  for  waiving  his  claim  to  a  Velasquez  that  was 
wanted  for  the  Louvre.  He  carried  a  newspaper  in  his 
hand,  and  stood  looking  about  the  room  with  a  com 
placent  eye. 

"Well,  I  guess  this  is  all  right,"  he  said,  and  she 
answered  briefly:  "Don't  forget  you're  to  take  down 
Madame  de  Follerive;  and  for  goodness'  sake  don't 
call  her  *  Countess.'  " 

[5921 


1      THE  CUSTOM  OF  IHE  COUNTRY 

"Why,  she  is  one,  ain't  she?"  he  returned  good- 
humouredly. 

-  "I  wish  you'd  put  that  newspaper  away,"  she  con 
tinued;  his  habit  of  leaving  old  newspapers  about  the 
drawing-room  annoyed  her. 

"Oh,  that  reminds  me "  instead  of  obeying  her 

he  unfolded  the  paper.  "I  brought  it  in  to  show  you 
something.  Jim  Driscoll's  been  appointed  Ambassa 
dor  to  England." 

"Jim  Driscoll !"  She  caught  up  the  paper  and 

stared  at  the  paragraph  he  pointed  to.  Jim  Driscoll — 
that  pitiful  nonentity,  with  his  stout  mistrustful  com 
monplace  wife!  It  seemed  extraordinary  that  the  gov 
ernment  should  have  hunted  up  such  insignificant  peo 
ple.  And  immediately  she  had  a  great  vague  vision  of 
the  splendours  they  were  going  to — all  the  banquets 
and  ceremonies  and  precedences.  .  . 

"I  shouldn't  say  she'd  want  to,  with  so  few  jew 
els —  "  She  dropped  the  paper  and  turned  to  her 
husband.  "If  you  had  a  spark  of  ambition,  that's  the 
k  ,nd  of  thing  you'd  try  for.  You  could  have  got  it  just 
as  easily  as  not!" 

He  laughed  and  thrust  his  thumbs  in  his  waistcoat 
armholes  with  the  gesture  she  disliked.  "As  it  hap 
pens,  it's  about  the  one  thing  I  couldn't." 

"You  couldn't?  Why  not?" 

"  Because  you're  divorced.  They  won't  have  divorced 
Ambassadresses." 

[593] 


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